Fat Startup Case Studies with Sramana Mitra

The 1Mby1M Methodology is based on case studies. In each course, Sramana Mitra shares the tribal knowledge of tech entrepreneurs by giving students the rare seat at the table with the entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders who provide the most instructive perspectives on how to build a thriving business. Through these conversations, students gain access to case studies exploring the alleys of entrepreneurship. Sramana’s synthesis of key learnings and incisive analysis add great depth to each discussion.

While we focus a lot more on lean startups than startups that require capital to get going these days, fat startups still play an important role in developing large-scale success stories with significant, defensible, competitive advantages.

The bulk of the VC industry has moved away from the ‘fat startup’ category. Investors expect that you will have your product launched, customer acquisition model fleshed out fully, and a team in place before Series A.

However, infrastructure software, hardware, networking, chips – they all need capital. Even in cloud software, to build complex technology like personalization, analytics and artificial intelligence requires some serious investment.

I see a few trends after pondering and investigating the question: How do people fund ‘fat startups’ these days?

One, you need a track record to get VCs to write big checks right away, so, often, it is the serial entrepreneurs who get these opportunities.

Two, some VCs incubate such companies with their Entrepreneurs In Residences, who are again typically serial entrepreneurs.

For first time entrepreneurs, the options are more limited.

The most viable option is to bootstrap using services.

Deep domain knowledge in a certain field may also give you access to capital.

A coherent, high-powered team that is willing to work for equity and build a prototype, along with a clear vision of product, customer need, customer acquisition model may, sometimes, work as well.

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