I have seen that happen with a $100 million s/w company. It was very depressing. Not only where the people they brought in thinking of themselves as “heavy hitters”. They where also poor at their jobs. They wouldn’t have done particularly well even if the company was ready to scale. That of course didn’t help. It was sad.
What kind of people would you search for to retain to help sniff out red flags the board might miss in situations like this? I know that it’s in the board’s job description, but who can you hire as a sanity check for such a big decision?
Someone who has done it before at slightly smaller scale. To grow a business from $50m to $200m in five years hire someone who grew a division from $10m to $50m in five years, ideally at a company where not every division grew at that rate.
Was it a company valued at $100M, or a company generating $100M in revenue? My guess would be the former - usually if the founding team has figured out how to reach $100M revenue, they're smart enough to avoid hiring the kinds of idiots you're describing.
At $100M valuation however, it happens all the time. I've seen it happen too, and it's very sad to watch.
$100M valuation means ”we have four founders with PhDs from MIT, and our product uses both blockchain and ML”. Valuations are almost meaningless nowadays, with liquidation preferences and other tricks.
This. Random useless blockchain projects have valuations in billions on paper these days. The only think that matters is how much revenue your company is doing, valuations are completely random based on buzzwords these days.
One of you is saying that valuations are meaningless because companies will accept punishing terms in exchange for a face-saving valuation. The other is saying that valuations are meaningless because investors are dumb and will throw money at buzzwords.
So which is it? Are valuations meaningless because it's too hard to raise money, or too easy?
And as a follow-up question: how does this contribute to the conversation about "heavy hitters"?
The company made $100M/Year in revenue. Unfortunately I think the founders felt they where in over their heads or got bored and where convinced to take on a new CEO. I met him, he was clearly not a good choice in my view. I have no idea how he was selected. He brought in people from his old company. It was downhill from there.
