Beware the Fake-Growth Trap
Startups should be growth machines. Just don’t confuse frantic activity with progress
LAST YEAR, A VENTURE capitalist who had expressed an interest in my startup, Iodine, passed on making an investment. Generously, and unlike too many VCs, he actually bothered to explain why we wouldn’t get his money. He was concerned, he said, that our growth at that time was a false positive—that we’d tapped into what looked like a great market but would see our growth
