Sunday, October 12, 2008

Sequoia Capital tells its companies to cut deep


Sequoia Capital, one of the Valley's leading venture capitalists, puts out a deck telling its companies that they need to cut deep, to get to revenue neutrality (in a seriously down revenue environment) because there ain't any more capital coming down the pike for a long while.

Depending on where you sit, of course, this isn't necessarily all bad. For example, a friend of mine who just got her startup funded points out that for her this is good news. Her company is the first mover in their space, and this means competitors are unlikely to get funded by other VCs. So they expect to have several years to get their business right without a lot of competitors pressing them.

Update: Jim Fallows has additional color on the conversation that accompanied this deck. Net net: "We are in drastic times. Drastic times mean drastic measures must be taken to survive. Forget about getting ahead, we're talking survive. Get this point into your heads..."

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