I've been thinking a lot about the 10x rule recently. There was a post on YCnews a few weeks ago suggesting that the real success rate was much closr to 50%.
At a panel of Boston-area VCs I attended, each of them said they had no idea where the mythical 10x number came from and that their success rate was closer to 50-90%. I seem to remember YC suggesting the sucess rate was much higher than 10%.
Granted a lot of these 'successes' are companies that are barely managing to stay in business...but they haven't gone bust either. Maybe a better way to look at the situation is that the VCs want to keep as many companies above water as possible in hopes that some smaller percentage will be a huge hit.
Bottom line, I don't think the goals of VCs and entrepeneurs are really as divergent as the 10x factor suggests.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=74562
At a panel of Boston-area VCs I attended, each of them said they had no idea where the mythical 10x number came from and that their success rate was closer to 50-90%. I seem to remember YC suggesting the sucess rate was much higher than 10%.
Granted a lot of these 'successes' are companies that are barely managing to stay in business...but they haven't gone bust either. Maybe a better way to look at the situation is that the VCs want to keep as many companies above water as possible in hopes that some smaller percentage will be a huge hit.
Bottom line, I don't think the goals of VCs and entrepeneurs are really as divergent as the 10x factor suggests.