Thoughts on funding

[ryandotsmith]

Funding a company with venture capital has upsides but it also has downsides. Specifically there is an expectation for extraordinary growth. I don't think this is inherently bad, but I don't want Index Supply to be constrained by this expectation. I think this philosophy gives Index Supply's team, products, and customers an interesting advantage: staying power.

There are plenty of companies who assembled talented teams and built great products only to be acquired -and later killed. I've been a part of these companies (ie Heroku and Chain). There are also companies who grow 1000x and then eventually stopped innovating or attracting top people. And then there are the outliers like Amazon and Shopify who have experienced insane growth and continue to innovate and attract top talent.

I would like to try something different. My goal is to create a company that is largely sustained by its revenue. A company that has a smaller team. A company that aims to build great products that provide demonstrable value –not necessarily market dominance. This doesn't mean it's a hobby or lifestyle business. I work just as hard as someone at an IPO/VC backed company. The key difference in not going down the VC route is that the outcome is entirely dictated by the team and our customers.