That's insane funding so congrats.
Just shows I'm the Dropbox commentator. I have what exe provides on my own and am shocked by the value these abstractions provide everyone else!! One off containers on my own hardware spin up spin down run async agents, etc, tailscale auth, team can share or connect easily by name.
Investment is done by relationships, belief in a future vision and team, and growth metrics like number of paying customers.
The technology itself in its current form is not valuable
Sobering comment for all the little people like myself who dream of owning a business based on a vision of cool tech that just does what it promises (as opposed to all the corporate shovelware out there)
Author here.
Almost every VC rejected us when we went to get seed funding for Tailscale, we knew none of them. Friends of friends of acquaintances got us meetings. Fundraising is very possible for you if you are committed to building a business. Most important thing is don't think of fundraising as the goal, it is just a tool for building a business. (And some businesses don't need VC funding to work. Some do.)
The biggest challenge is personal: do you want to build a business or do you want to work with cool tech? Sometimes those goals are aligned, but usually they are not. Threading the needle and doing both is difficult, and you always have to prioritize the business because you have to make payroll.
You can still do that. Not every business needs to be a hyperscaling startup.
Agreed! Over at https://pico.sh we are chugging along and having a blast. Profitable but at a scale that is manageable for us. Cheers