Everybody is working for Google

During the years I worked at a startup, I remember conversations of only two types. Which dishes come with  the best deserts in nearby restaurants, and when would we have an Exit. 

On the monthly company meetings, while the CEO was charismatically elaborating the company achievements and goals. describing the company long term growth and sustainability plans. Everybody would stare at his tall blue eyes, and the rooms would fill with a single thought humming from everybody’s brains and across the globally connected meeting rooms. Tell something about the Exit, exit, exit.

Everybody was working for Google. And Facebook , Microsoft and the rest of this short list we all know oh so well. Whether you are a swashbuckiling entrepreneur, a VC Manager, or the first Java engineer in the hypest 5 men augmented VR-AI team. You are all part of a chain that’s designed with a single purpose. To put products on the shelf for S&P top 5 firms. 

It's a simple and effective design. To develop a firm you need to develop your product and your audience. For that you need investors. Investments will come one way or another via some sort of Venture Capital investment. 

 VC’s have basically a straightforward financing method as well. They raise money from partners for a time period of several years. With a promise of certain return on investment upon the termination of this period.
When this period approaches it’s end, people start to get edgy. They want to see results. And results come in a number - ROI.   

 No exit with ICO 

 ICO’s are turning this model on it’s head. When a company successfully raises money with an ICO, it does not have a VC on it’s back (or head). There is no time slot in which the company has to deliver on predefined ROI steps. 

 When investors buy a Token of a new venture via an ICO, they do it because they want to see this company grow and succeed. They want to be a part of an ever developing, ever growing business. They can sell and monetize at will. but If the company performs well they will never sell, and They will never urge the founders to sell. 

 And the founders have no reason to. They probably already had their exit. Yes, that’s right. The fact that founders get a big pile of money up front in a successful ICO is a good thing.  A good ICO keeps your mind free to focus on one thing only. The future of your business. and when you start with a full belly, you can focus on what your mind dreams.

 Grow beyond  Exit 

 And  then it happened, after eight years of building and grooming a beautiful, highly sophisticated, super advanced and smart company. it’s all gone. One day the company is no more.   We were all doing so good, that we were entitled to get the ultimate prise. We were terminated.   

 Everybody is happy of course, we got money, and we are moving on to the next adventure. The company was eaten at last and we can forgo everything we worked for and go buy a chrome Jetpack with diamond blades.   

 If we all had tradable Tokens rather than options. And we would watch our token value grow each quarter, with each new release, with each goal met.  How would we feel then during company meetings?  

Sure, there would be many scams and failures with ICO’s. But given time, this model of raising capital would prove much more sustainable. It will create a vivid, diversified and bustling ecosphere of businesses, all with different interests and unique cultures. And replace the everybody-swims-waiting-to-get-swallowed  mechanism. 

 The ICO model is still emerging and shaping out. Whether it will keep that unique and crucial character, depends on investors. When considering my investments in an ICO, before anything else I'm trying to to ask myself, is this project just trying to wrap itself nicely to be picked up later on, or is it aiming for real growth and independence.   

That’s where the value is.