Mark MacLeodFounder, Limitless.ceo · The Startup CEO Coach | Helping ambitious CEOs & founders scale world-changing companies without sacrificing their health, happiness, purpose, or humanity

Keeping the business profitable without a VC, Zack Onisko - Ex CEO at Dribbble

1 May 2024 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:44

Excerpt from a May 1, 2024 YouTube interview (Mark MacLeod channel) with Zack Onisko, former CEO of Dribbble. In this clip Onisko explains that Dribbble had positive cash flow and profitability, so they chose not to take venture capital to avoid misaligned VC influence; he and his board decided to continue growing independently and retained the option to raise later, though they never needed to.

Chapters

I kind of knew at that point we had, we had cash flow, we had, we had a growing business, and it's profitable. So there's no need to take on additional capital and just have the, the pain of having a VC on your, on your board or on a cap table who's, who's likely not aligned with where you are in the journey of building a business. And so that was just the decision. And, you know, I talked, talked to a lot of other entrepreneurs and friends of mine, CEOs, and, and our board, and we kind of just decided, let's just, let's see how long we can go, continue to grow this thing. And look, I could always come back to the table and raise capital if we need it. But that day never came.