Founder Commitment and Ambition

Startups that are still around, 10+ years later

I invested in 25 startups in the first half of the 2010s. I recently went back and looked to see how they did or have done.

Eighteen of the 25 companies no longer exist. About half of those 18 were acquired, and some shut down. Among those that shut down, some had a meaningful amount of money in the bank and returned money to investors, and some kept operating until they were completely out of cash.

One of the 25 is now public, and the original founding team has all left the company. Six of the 25 companies are still operating as private companies. Five of those six still operating companies are being run by the original founder/co-founder; in one case, the founder has moved to a Board role.

As a founder and investor, I am greatly impressed by that sort of long-term commitment. I know how tempting it is to throw in the towel when things get challenging. I haven't yet come close to leading a company for ten years, and the founders’ commitment is admirable.

Many times, I’ve read an update from a founder citing challenges and a diminishing bank account balance, and it made me think "this company is probably finished." Sometimes I was right, but in a few cases, the founder and the team put their heads down and either got to profitability or made enough progress to be able to raise additional capital. That doggedness and execution is the (positive!) exception.

The six private companies that are still around 10+ years later still exist because of an amazing level of commitment and persistence. Survival is not the default. Some of those companies have grown to be quite large and may go public in the years to come; others have been dogged in their execution but have not grown as much even if they are sustainable, profitable companies.

Of course, there are different definitions of success. YouTube only operated for a few years as a private company, yet was a major financial success for founders, employees, and investors and has been extremely influential. Some companies I’ve been involved with were acquired on similar timelines, even if they didn’t grow quite as quickly as YouTube did.

The very biggest companies in the world tend to be both as ambitious as YouTube, with founder(s) still committed and growing the company 10+ years in — Meta, Nvidia, Amazon, etc. But that’s not the only way to be successful.