Flot.bio’s Post

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But still because I'm in biolabs has been profitable. You have to build a from the beginning and you have never raised money. You still haven't closed around the phone. You have not really looking into any external capital, correct? We, it, it's very liberating to be a profitable company. So it's interesting because on the one hand, I'm a venture capitalist and I want to invest in your company or in an entrepreneurial company and buy the equity. But if I have a choice, I will not take other people's money if I don't have to, right? And if you're able to. And and a piece of public service announcement for any, any entrepreneurial was listening. If you don't have to take money, don't take money, right. If you are taking the least amount, yeah, possible to get over there. If you're able to build a profitable company on your own, that's a good way to do it because then you have the decision making, then you can pursue what you want to do. And, and sort of make sure that you have profits because if as long as you have profits, you can rule your business and you can rule your life. As soon as you lose money, things look very different. And as soon as you're out of money, you have to shut the door. So it's a, it's a careful balance, right? And it's not, it's not a bad thing to take other partners into your business to provide capital as long as they, as long as you have a good arrangement with these providers of capital about like who does what, who has what level of control? What are you going to use the capital for? Are you using it to grow your revenues? Are you using it to conduct a piece of research and development which will lead you to an. An increase in valuation and milestone, are you? Looking to bring in capital that's smart capital that's another big piece of like money is not the same from like the same dollar is not worth the same. If you have an investor that brings in talent or connections or. That they can or other non monetary value that can be very important and instrumental for your company, yeah. OK, yeah, I like that the. I like that. I mean was struck by you not really trying to bootstrapping it and yeah, making profits all versus Lebec where we raised money and we took us a long time to be profitable. I mean even though it was on the small scale, not the hundreds of 1,000,000, but the diner. Makes the mechanics, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to say it's sometimes it's sometimes it's the same struggles or it may be easier to raise more money. And then so it's, it's the same, I mean, the overall the same mechanics work, right? As soon as you have external investors in your company, they will want to say in where you take your company. That's only fair, right? And it's like your marriage. Yeah, absolutely. All long term. Absolutely. So it, it is important also for you, the entrepreneur to look very closely at who are the potential investors in my company. Hopefully you have a choice, unfortunately. In many cases, our entrepreneurs have no choice. Yeah, they have to take the money from the first and only one that offers them. But if you do have a choice. Use it and and be very careful about like who do you allow to be on your board of directors? Who do you allow to have a blocking vote on, on your shareholder agreements? Like look into the head, don't judge and say, oh, I need the 5 million. I'll take it from anybody. Be very careful because it is like a marriage. It's a relationship. Every day you'll be having to run decisions by these people and hopefully they will be supportive of your of your decisions. Hopefully they'll add value. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're driven by other interests. It's misaligned. Yeah. Sometimes the the time horizon for their investment doesn't align with your interests, right. And and then you're in trouble. They they make you sell the company even though you you wanna build it further. I. Like what you say and then I can I can double on this. I mean, my experience was that I take it, but was definitely a big focus on people on who we let in. But I like your point a lot on like what are your options at the moment? And even for something we did have that many options, but we did. Say no to a few investors where where where we just didn't feel like it and and in hindsight was the right decision. Good. And especially I think it's especially tricky with at the beginnings. I mean, you see it probably in your in your ventures. I mean at the beginning, everything works. The first one for years. You know honeymoon period. Yeah he's definitely been two years. It's like 21 cotton in Boston. Everything is faster. But once you get to like challenging path of life a bridge down valuation. All then enforced exit all even though just to exit mean for me one big reason it was one chef money on the table for lacked very differently yeah it's the same people but once it's it's and that's where having selected the right people and it's not the right for everyone. It's also we do fit makes a big difference and and relationships again relationships matter that's where having been through this once or twice. Relationships and experiences do matter, right? Sound like an old person who know, honey? But it's, it's a, it's helpful to have been through this once or twice because now you're looking at the potential investor very differently because you, you know what's going to happen during the time of the building of the business. You, you know what can happen during the exit of the business. And some of these events can be pretty nasty, right? And at the same time, it's hugely valuable to invest in relationships to build a trusted. Partners like that and if you find that group, you could invest with them or you could have them invest in your ideas in a serial fashion and they come back for the next idea whether you make the money or not. It's also as part of your, if you're, if you're an entrepreneur and there's an investor that comes to look at your business, you should also do diligence on them, right? And you should try to find the other entrepreneurs that this guy invested in previously called them. Find out what they have to say, especially with the ones that didn't work, that didn't work very well, right? Like what happened? Did they change management? Did they fire the founder? How did they deal with? Adversity. How did they deal with with trouble and did they add value beyond the dollars? It's very important. And it's I, I see the mistake often by young teams, first time teams, that they grab the first money that's on the table. And that's not always smart.