The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance, or Grow Your Company with Your Customers' Cash

8Make It Happen: Put a Customer-Funded Model to Work in Your Business

“Ring the cash register.” That's what you want to make happen to get your business off the ground or growing faster, of course. And, as you may recall having read in the Preface (“Why This Book?” way back at the front), it's also where venture capital investor Mark Suster argues that his entrepreneurs should place their focus. Why? “Some businesses take time to find their magic, says Suster. “And I only know one reason companies go out of business—they run out of money. Delaying going out of business gives you way more chances at product/market fit than any other strategy I know of.”¹ It is Suster's view that getting your customers' cash flowing sooner rather than later is the best way to lower your company's burn rate and defer that unfortunate event, hopefully forever. Of course, you already know from Chapter 1 numerous other reasons why, in the early evolution of your venture, it's a much better idea to ring the cash register, in Suster's words, than to spend your time trying to raise investor capital. From Chapter 2, you also know that doing so is as much about mind-set—day in, day out—as anything else, along with the behavior that results from that mind-set. Whose behavior? Your behavior and that of everyone else in your company, too. You also know from Chapter 2 that your and your people's mind-set ...