The metaphor in the title refers to "no silver bullets"
> There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.
bsder · 8h ago
VC thinking at its worst:
Me: “Why does competitor X have five times your revenue?”
Entrepreneur: “We are using partners and OEMs, because we can’t build a direct channel like competitor X.”
Me: “Why not? If you have the better product, why not knuckle up and go to war?”
Um, because building out direct sales means we will have to hire a bunch of people, expend a huge amount of our revenue, and have a decent probability that we will completely fail and take the company with it.
But, yeah, that's visionary!
> “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?”
Note that "successful" has only one definition to these kinds of people. Deal with them at your own peril.
Ancapistani · 7h ago
> Um, because building out direct sales means we will have to hire a bunch of people, expend a huge amount of our revenue, and have a decent probability that we will completely fail and take the company with it.
> But, yeah, that's visionary!
Not doing those things may well allow your competitor to capture more of the market, use that revenue to out-build you, then take over your market share as well.
It's entirely possible that "grow faster than the competition" is the only viable survival tactic.
jordanb · 5h ago
You're assuming that the competitor has better distribution but think in this example distribution is similar but the competitor owns the channel and can capture revenue you have to leave to your channel partners.
A concrete example is: you product is widely being sold by retailers who are taking 50%of gross. Your investor tells you to go for broke building your own stores so you can capture that margin.
> There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.
But, yeah, that's visionary!
> “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?”
Note that "successful" has only one definition to these kinds of people. Deal with them at your own peril.
> But, yeah, that's visionary!
Not doing those things may well allow your competitor to capture more of the market, use that revenue to out-build you, then take over your market share as well.
It's entirely possible that "grow faster than the competition" is the only viable survival tactic.
A concrete example is: you product is widely being sold by retailers who are taking 50%of gross. Your investor tells you to go for broke building your own stores so you can capture that margin.