the most common mistake I've seen after seeing hundreds of startup pitches: conflating a regular business with a startup - a regular business is something that has customers and makes money, but is limited in scale. most small businesses or lifestyle type businesses fit this shape - for example, if you're making 1M revenue yearly and then 1.1M the next year, and then 1M the next year etc, that's a nice business, but it's not yet a startup - a startup is determined almost exclusively by growth rate and scale - i.e you make $5, then $50, then $1,000, then 1M, then 10M, then 180M etc - that is to say, just having a good idea and a useful product with revenue is not enough to be a startup and hence raise venture capital. it must have the vision of an explosive growth shape - this is important because this is directly related to raising money. founders get upset when they get rejected despite having a good product or idea with some revenue, but the investor looks at the growth potential. they do not care about turning 1M into 1.5M, their economics require them to turn 10M into 1B - and frankly, you do not want VC ownership in a small business because it will directly hurt your freedom and take rate takeaway: before thinking of raising funds because you've seen others do it, ask if you're building a regular business or a startup the way to tell is by the growth rate and scale
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