[mwseibel]

I think there are certain companies with significant upfront capital requirements that first time founders will find it almost impossible to get funded. This is unfortunate and probably reducing overall innovation but I think the revolution that has caused first time founders to get funding has been software. Software has significantly reduced the upfront capital required to get a business off the ground. I think we Founder venture further and further away from pure software companies they are going to find fundraising much more challenging.

[numbsafari]

A company that comes to my mind is Kestrel Aviation. They had a great plan up front, founder pedigree, and experience. But they got distracted by hubris and stopped executing.

Launching a new general aviation company is massively capital intensive. They raised a bunch but failed to do anything that resembled shipping. They could have made individual parts, they could have sold kits. Any number of things.

Sometimes you have to start with the small pieces, or do services engagements. These things generate revenue, attract staff, and enable you to build the kind of organization necessary to do something capital intensive.

Trying to go to Mars as step one won’t typically work. Try to find business models for the components and assemble over time. My guess is that Elon Musk’s portfolio follows this model.