The "ideal track" is a myth, isn't it?

When it comes to advice, technology loves standardization. Startups are often told that there are certain metrics to hit, deadlines to meet, timelines to measure themselves against.

Examples abound: here's the ideal amount of money to collect on your Series A spin; here's how many employees you should have before hiring this executive; this is the stage at which to hire legal counsel; and, most recently, here's the percentage of employees you should lay off if you can't get more funding.

(The answer is 20% of staff, depending on who you ask).

There is an answer to some of these general assertions: startups are complicated, and one size certainly doesn't fit all. Nonetheless, these startup standards help steer companies in the right direction, becoming the status quo at some point.

That's why when entrepreneur Paul Graham, the co-founder of Y Combinator, suggested he was seeing startups with 20 years of trail through huge fundraising in 2021, it struck me. struck. Isn't the general advice that startups should have three years of track? And if we are in a more bullish market, 18 months?

My belated reaction to that August tweet aside, let's talk about the track. As you can see from the title of this article, I think the ideal track length is a myth – alongside other startup myths like more money equals more growth. By the end of this article, you might agree.