The Unicorn

So you had a great idea. Your dorm was like heaven. Your buddies helped out, they became your partners. You slaved together. This matter, you were on to something you thought, and so did everyone else.

1 million downloads. Papers took notice. You were exited beyond comprehension.

You worked yourself tireless. You were not afraid, because you had a plan, or so you said – Some called it A hit.

Borrowed a bit of money and things grew.

Listen man, they said: this is huge.

You met some moneymen. They loved you. Phew. It was all so easy.- 5 million downloads.

Series f-ing A - 5 million. Wuuu. You got yourself a Tesla. What was only 12 months ago seemed so distant. Your friends don’t recognize you.

10 million downloads – Live on CNBC. You stopped taking your girlfriends calls. Every insecure Silicon Valley backer was brownnosing you. Strategy/team/global potential/possible acquirers/IPO/exit strategy. You pretended you knew what everyone was talking about.

Booooom – 30 million funding – They sky is the limit. In between a frenzy of text messages, LinkedIn messages, Facebook messages, emails a club sandwich and coke. Move into swanky office. Hire new CEO.

People started to recognize you – he’s the UNICORN they said. You got the girls and whatever you said people considered wisdom. Where are the revenue some said. But who listens? Who cares? Ebitda – are you kidding this is 2015.

You live at your office.

KABOOOMMM 50 million downloads. Growth is phenomenal, faster than everything else they say double digit every month.

You’re battling with capacity issues. You hardly don’t recognize the people at the office any longer.

Friday morning pep talk. You deliver a stunning piece of well-crafted words of pure manipulation. (I’m confident, yet scared like shit on the inside. But here goes) – “People say we are the next Uber or next Facebook. But I say, they will all live in our shadow. We will blow them all out of the water. The world will talk about before and after our app. What you are working on changes peoples lives for the better. And the significance of what you do here will have greater effect on the society than when Edison electrified New York City”. Afterwards you went to the lu and threw up.

They are talking about a billion dollars valuation and a possible 130 mill series C.

Into the great wide open. Everyone wants a piece of you.

You’re possibly worth more than 500 million dollars. Revenues is a bad word, Burn rate is a word from the 90’s when Madonna still was sexy. You’re a role model now.

But you also know that growth is flattening.

Your mentor whispers, “You should possibly start laying off some people.” But people are pouring in every day, analysts, BI, math’s professors, developers, psycho and neuron analytics (they know how people think – gotta have them). Bigger space and office in New York and Shanghai and you celebrate two years

Growth flat for second month in a row. You’re about to close series C but some are getting nervous, some has already left. You keep a good face it’s just a sudden slump. Were the Unicorn – remember.

It’s a race you never expected and it seems like it will never end. A new round will fix this

“Money - get away/Get a good job with more pay and your O.K./Money - it's a gas/Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash”

And now – the cliff. Ooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiii – 30% drop in downloads. What the hell happened?

NO funding for you boy.

Sell sell. Who’s the buyer? Over 100 million downloads you say. That’s gotta be worth something to somebody. But you’re running out of money. Who can fund the madness?

You’re in the place of shipwrecked startups. The land between a broken business/bad model/wrong investors/wrong entrepreneur/ obsolete tech/ wrong timing/bad team and you have no idea to fix.

You oversold to investors/you realize your in the wrong place/your business sucks/you suck/they suck/customers has gone AWOL. Your idea might have been awesome, but is not any more.

You’re just the hit from last month. The app on the dashboard no one talks about anymore.

Ah well hold on, were still the biggest thing in Indonesia. The last idiot is not borne yet, there is always a buyer.

But the music is fading. Deep blue rings under your eyes…

Hyped up, with the stare you get from having too much energy/too much self confidence/too many people around you saying you will do well/great, story in tech crunch/local version of the same shit/all drinking the same cool aid./ adrenalin and testosterone high. We are not created to be Gods.

“Into the great wide open/Under them skies of blue/Out in the great wide open/A rebel without a clue.”

You long back to the days in the dorm but you passed the point of no return tens of millions of dollars ago.

Your company was sold to a Hollywood star that never had a bad hair day in his career and you updated your CV.

You tasted the sweet taste of success, you liked it, you learnt a lesson and moved in with a new girlfriend in a one bedroom apartment. Got a Beagle named him Unicorn and the music played on…

Stephan