The cheerleaders are quiet.
When Pharmeasy acquired Thyrocare, online influencers were cheering how Indian startups have ‘matured’ and how a nascent startup acquiring a mature company showed their ‘coming of age’, whatever that meant.
Just a year or two ago, all you could hear about was fundraising, unicorns, and acquisitions. Nobody was asking if these businesses were viable. Somehow, funding and ‘growth’ would take care of everything.
Now, that things have gone south — as they had to — the cheerleaders are silent. Everybody, including VCs, has suddenly discovered the importance of profitability and is talking about a funding winter.
What the hell is funding winter? Has the economy tanked? No. Has the demand declined? No.
The economy is just fine. The only thing that has changed is the investor FOMO.
What was going on was a subtle ponzi scheme, where the entrepreneurs and early stage investors were getting rich at the cost of the late stage investors. But like all ponzi schemes, this also came to an end.
The only lesson from this whole saga is this: Never forget the fundamentals. The more you ignore them, they harder they will bite you.
– Rajan