

Ask HN: Do investors prefer high growth rate, or nailed/scalable business model? - austenallred

For the sake of argument, let’s say “high growth rate” = 100k new users&#x2F;month for something generic and consumer web-like. Maybe a photo sharing app or social news app.<p>Business model nailed means bringing in 15k&#x2F;month in revenue in a big market with obvious potential scale quickly.
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prostoalex
Unless the high growth business is in some magical new sector, it's not too
hard to figure out what the business model will be - you're going to sell ads,
and figure out native monetization options.

Therefore a high growth business (like Twitter or Pinterest) is very
predictable once certain numbers kick in.

Scalable business model is a turn on to some investors (Benchmark likes to
fund marketplaces, after their home run with eBay and now Uber), but there's
always some unknowns - like your return policy doesn't scale, you need more
customer service staff than you originally planned, a dozen of competitors
emerge, or Google adds your business model as a side feature to one of their
products.

