I work with a lot of startup companies and I hear a frequent cry, “We need money!” They need to raise capital in order to get their businesses off the ground or to keep their businesses going. These are businesses that either employ people and want to hire more, or make their first hire, but they have to overcome the obstacle of raising money.
Why can’t they raise the money?
Well, for a lot of startups, it is not that they can’t raise the money, it is that it is hard to raise the money. Sometimes very hard. It is like the persistence hunting of early Homo sapiens. To survive, early Homo sapiens had to run, nonstop, for hours and hours and hours on end (10 to 12 hours or more nonstop), until the antelope or the gazelle they were chasing finally, out of heat exhaustion, stopped to pant again and could no longer move, and our ancestors could finally spear it and eat.
The furred creatures of our ancestral homelands were faster and stronger than us, for sure. But what did we have that they didn’t? Well, we could run AND pant (sweat) at the same time. Conveniently, our bodies are like one big tongue, whereas the furred creatures have to stop and pant frequently to cool off.
Persistence hunting is what allowed us to survive. Homo sapiens sure look weak when naked next to a lion or a tiger. If you were an odds-maker at the time when they first arrived on the scene, I am not sure you would have bet on the Homo sapiens to dominate the globe. But we have. And the reason is our physiological predisposition towards persistence. It is no wonder we wound up spreading out all over the globe rapidly (in geologic terms). When you are running 10 to 12 hours at a time, chasing food, you can cover a lot of ground!
Alas, it is the same with many startups today.
Please see full publication below for more information.
