Growth Sense News’ Post

A lot is talking about lay offs specially recent news around Sharan Hedge’s company. It raises an important question: Why do some startups over-hire and spend freely when investor money is still in the bank, only to resort to layoffs or drastic cuts when funds run low? A better approach is treat investor funds like your own. Set a budget, establish approval workflows, create a thoughtful hiring plan, and monitor burn rate regularly. Being vigilant from day one builds investor confidence and can make future funding rounds smoother. Use investor money wisely—it shows discipline and resilience. #StartupWisdom #EfficientGrowth #InvestorConfidence #Budgeting #BurnRate #Econiiq #StartupLife #SaaS

🚀 Optimize Operations to Attract Investors Investors want to see a business that’s lean and ready to scale. If your operations are bogged down, it can signal inefficiency. 🤨 Why tie up funds in a full-time ops hire when a fractional Biz Ops expert can handle your back office, giving you the freedom to invest in product and sales growth? Make the smart choice and show investors you’re built for success. Efficiency isn’t just a buzzword—it’s your path to funding. 💬 Chat with us for 15 minutes, and we’ll show you how to extend your runway! #StartupOps #BusinessEfficiency #InvestorFocus #VC #Seed #SeriesA #Founders #ExtendYourRunway

I have recently joined the board of Rose Equity Partners, a firm dedicated to helping founders in the Media and Technology industries achieve meaningful, strategic exits. Here’s why this might matter to you or someone in your network: If you have built a business, put in the long hours, made the tough calls, and scaled it to a place of healthy profitability. Maybe you’re thinking about: ➟Breaking through the next growth ceiling with new capital, ➟Expanding through acquisitions, or ➟ Preparing for a high-value exit If this sounds familiar, James Rose at Rose Equity Partners and his team are helping founders achieve just that. The team is actively seeking to speak with business owners with: ➟20+ full-time employees ➟£2M+ in annual revenue ➟No VC or PE funding, true bootstrapped grit. If you’re considering your next step, or know someone who might be, feel free to DM James or I directly. We would love to chat. PS: I have dropped a link to the website in the comments, if you would like to learn more about Rose Equity.

🔍 Investors Notice Operational Wastage Investors know that operational inefficiency can burn through runway faster than anything else. A fragmented back-office setup can raise red flags. Do you really want an FTE managing operations when you could have a sales or product lead driving growth? Consider a fractional Biz Ops solution instead—it’s efficient, effective, and investor-approved. 📈 Keep your business running smoothly, without breaking the bank. 💬 Book 15 minutes with us, and we’ll show you how to extend your runway! #InvestorReady #BusinessOps #StartupGrowth #VC #Seed #SeriesA #Founders #ExtendYourRunway

Harsh truth: We all complain that angel investors and VCs tend to ghost… Well, they don’t owe us anything. Yes, it’s tough to accept, but this is the reality. They don’t owe us feedback, an explanation, or even a simple email. The day you have zero expectations, you’ll feel much better. It took me a while to accept that. Since then, I’ve been focusing on what matters: Building our business, pX Simple. #propx #startuplife #realestate #proptech

When I say that one my specialties is going from 0-1 as a venture builder, here's exactly what that means. Straight up Founder stage with nothing but an idea then validating that idea, putting together the org chart, early hiring/partnerships/JV/Co-Founders/EIR & CEO's, budgeting, forecasting, lining up the right vendors, getting the company all set up legally, opening bank accounts, setting up payroll, fundraising planning, round 1 fundraise... and pretty much everything else needed for this new company to either launch or go raise capital. I hate to say that this stuff is the stuff that most Founders hate doing or they just skip over all together like validating their idea, but I love it as I would rather have everything set up the right way from the get go than have to go do all of that shit when things actually kick into gear.

There’s a real draught of options for companies that raised millions of dollars and still haven’t hit $1M ARR. They have a product, a team, and some customers, but not the growth that’ll get investors excited. They can’t raise the next round They can’t sell to PE Strategic acquirers, if any, don’t have cash to pay Investors have already written off the investment. Founders have no real direction on what to do next.

While there’s a bee line for IPOs currently, many companies are not necessarily ready for public markets. The flexibility to experiment / make entrepreneurial decisions without the glaring view of public market investors (a-la the recent Mamaearth’s decision), quarter-to quarter pressures and the public disclosures which competitors love to lap up!! This theme is well captured in this article in the The Wall Street Journal. This has led to a spate of private tenders which increases runway to stay private while providing fair exits to employees and smaller shareholders without compromising control on captables and information. The trend is aligned with rising interest from specialist secondaries investors and family offices who are keen to come into late stage privates. Orchestrating this however can give even the most seasoned dealmakers and CFOs nightmares and that’s where CapHive's new age tech platform steps in - making execution of multi-party secondaries a breeze, including managing multiple counterparties and advisors, while keeping the entire process control with the Company. #secondaries #fasterdealsarebetter #privateipo #techfordeals

I’ve been reviewing companies for acquisition for the past few months. One surprising fact is how founders get anchored to the best deals they have seen and think that they should be treated like those hot deals in their vertical. Many VC backed founders are still delusional about their exit path. They are not growing and the runway is almost done. Most of it is just dependent on the hope that they’ll figure something out. Without any plan. The mindset is to just burn the money and not to get the remaining value back to shareholders. I would have thought that founders would try to return whatever they could and find a path for the team.

Many people say that investors' only value is money - this is flat out wrong and has not been the case for us.   Arthur Ventures has been the best partner for Zūm Rails and a key reason why we’ve more than doubled our revenue since our raise earlier this year    From the first encounter to now, the Arthur Venture’s team has been professional, no bullshit, straight shooters and want to help when they can and are hands off otherwise.   They don't waste our time sugar-coating things and our board meetings are extremely useful in driving the business forward They don’t bother us with phone calls, unless it’s to share an opportunity to drive the business forward -       When we have complex business issues, they help resolve it  -       When we need new leads, they pass them our way -       When we hire key executives, they have helped throughout the process All of this to say: There’s a lot more to venture capital than just money. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise