Precursor VenturesA classic pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firm

What If Startups Could Exit the VC Game Midair?

11 May 2025 · 0 min

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0:12

Short conversation (video) from Precursor Ventures discussing the lack of a clear 'off-ramp' for startups that must shift from growth-focused venture capital strategies toward profitability or private-equity-style stewardship. Speakers describe structural differences between VC and PE investments and the operational difficulty of changing product, hiring, pricing and business-model decisions made for growth 'in midair.'

How do I get off? And I think the author is right. We don't have a good off ramp. And I think some of this is.
Just the structural differences in what makes a good venture capital investment and what makes a good PE investment.
And you know, we have companies in our portfolio that.
Are trying to navigate this.
They're growing, but they're not growing fast enough to maybe unlock the next round. But they're not companies that under any circumstances should be shut down. And the difficulty is actually in how do you take a company where most of the product and operating decisions that were made for the first couple of years were all all oriented toward growth. The hiring plan, the product development plan, the business model, the price, we're all oriented towards growth. And then you have to sort of like in midair change gears and say all the things we were focused on growth and, you know, not worried about profitability.