What a great article - thank you. But please, that's it with the fund raising, please stop now.
You've demonstrated that SEOmoz can get through tough times and grow organically. You've even grown SEOMoz to a reasonable size and are now able to layer on team members almost as fast as you can hire them. Next year you'll be much bigger, and it's going to be even easier.
As you say the fund raising process distracted you from the main customer cause, and I suspect that having those funds would most likely have done serious damage.
So it's good to see you are sticking to your guns and moving away from fund raising to keep building the business. There seems to be no reason to give any of it away for the sake of a few bucks a year or two earlier than otherwise expected.
Perhaps you could also slow growth just a fraction and take some more cash out to ensure that the shareholders are comfortable along the way. While it might take a year longer to get to $100 million, you'll be a lot happier along the way.
The contrarian VCs of old would be writing checks, but by the time SEO is cool with many of the current crop you'll be starting your own fund.
You've demonstrated that SEOmoz can get through tough times and grow organically. You've even grown SEOMoz to a reasonable size and are now able to layer on team members almost as fast as you can hire them. Next year you'll be much bigger, and it's going to be even easier.
As you say the fund raising process distracted you from the main customer cause, and I suspect that having those funds would most likely have done serious damage.
So it's good to see you are sticking to your guns and moving away from fund raising to keep building the business. There seems to be no reason to give any of it away for the sake of a few bucks a year or two earlier than otherwise expected.
Perhaps you could also slow growth just a fraction and take some more cash out to ensure that the shareholders are comfortable along the way. While it might take a year longer to get to $100 million, you'll be a lot happier along the way.
The contrarian VCs of old would be writing checks, but by the time SEO is cool with many of the current crop you'll be starting your own fund.
Great stuff.