susanwise

Or yes, an intro to your founder coach would be great.

Thank you, I'm ready for whatever happens how! can I contact you, if you are open to it?

Thanks for sharing the Nokia "burning platform" memo, just read it.

We just never did it and missed the moment. But honestly I look at it now and founders who have taken money off the table but have not or will not return money to investors...is that a better spot to be in? Because if you throw in the towel then, why would those investors EVER back you again. Maybe if early investors AND founders take some chips off the table you can better align incentives. But this whole secondary movement seems like a manifestation of a "cash is free" market we have been in for some time before the markets turned.

Thanks for this feedback. And maybe the pre-requisite to getting alignment, is to first get clarity on whether the new investor putting money in wants me as CEO to help get to the right outcome for everyone.

Wow...I don't even have any words really. So I'll just say THANK YOU! I will need to read that a coupe more times. But my first question is who are you and how do you know all this and how can I contact you?

thank you for sharing this. tough to read but totally resonates. and hope you have found your footing now!

It because that's the burn number we will be at by the end of year, lots of cost cutting work to reach that number. And new investor is willing to write the check to execute on this plan but will get their fair share of skin for the risk.

What do you think aligns those incentives in this example?

yes, that's correct. Which is why I'm asking for advice/guidance here....

THat's 1M a MONTH, so $12M a year in annual losses.

Big ticket, small group of customer ~100 customers. Some customers would be in a very tough spot.

The funding is to keep the hamster wheel going and the new amount will allow us to get to profitability.

Burn was and is much much higher than where we will end the year. (I'm learning) there's a lot of work that goes into getting cost out of the business while preserving as much revenue as possible. We just unfortunately haven't been able to cut cost our fast enough without having to be dependent on this next round of funding.

Generally right here, just has a physical operating component to the business which makes COGS high. Think of it like e-commerce business where you are buying goods and shipping to customers. We can cut deeper, but new investors don't want to do that at he cost of revenue. In other words, I cannot materially cut costs without sacrificing revenue bc I have a fundamental GP problem that will take time to improve over several quarters.

#3 and #4 are not mutually exclusive, There IS new money coming in (thankfully), but I can also "give up" after the money is in and the company is on more stable financial footing to execute Plan #1. But truthfully, I'm likely not the right CEO for Plan #1.

New money in does not want to execute this plan, and last money in wins. Given the debt vs. cash scenario, I don't have enough cash to execute he 60-90 day burn wind down plan. But from a logical perspective I completely agree with you and really should have pushed for this approach a year ago. We cut down our burn by nearly 50% last year, but turns out really should have cut it by 80-90% to not have to be in this spot.