Companies with poor unit economics found themselves propelled by aggressive venture dollars (which themselves were propelled by a low-interest-rate environment). Those companies then turned those dollars into aggressive customer acquisition. Until recently, the market rewarded growth at all costs.

“That’s a post-money valuation of one hundred fifty to one hundred seventy-five million, depending on how much we raise.” I was worried that this price was unrealistic, and that the offering might not fly when it hit the street. “I just can’t see how our business plan supports that valuation,” I said. “It’s enough to make a sane investor toss his c

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If they hadn’t raised at a $200m valuation that wouldn’t be the end of the world. But now, the indie hacker path is out of the question.

Edward Chancellor’s history of financial manias, Devil Take the Hindmost, urging them to read it. Chancellor’s account of England’s railway mania of 1845 had made an especially deep impression on Kagle, who saw all of the similarities between the railroad, then hailed as a revolutionary advance without historical parallel, and the Internet. In both

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