Empirically very few big technology companies do it without taking money from investors.
I've never really liked the term "lifestyle business" and I don't know who invented it. But I think it is a useful distinction, even for the people starting them. Is your goal for the company to make yourself a nice living, or do you want it to grow into something bigger than would be needed to achieve that?
It's false that VCs want companies to be acquired. They would much prefer that they continued to grow as independent companies, like Google or Facebook. Those are the big successes that generate most of the returns in the VC business.
I think that last sentence might be misleading. VCs very much do aim for eventual liquidity. In a very few rare cases, the obvious success of a portfolio company may allow them to defer the need for liquidity (when Goldman is creating new funds just to get itself into Facebook, there's probably no pressing need for a VC to get out of Facebook), but the underlying need is still there.
I've read enough about the economics of VC funds to understand why this is, but I've also witnessed it firsthand. Unless you are setting the world on fire, your VCs don't want to sit on your board for 6 years, and will press for an exit.
This is something that challenges me about your analyses; you evoke Microsoft and Google and Facebook. If you're Facebook, all bets are off. I hope the Airbnbs do become as big as Ebay, but very few of the companies you help start are going to achieve that bracket of success.
Sure, if a company isn't going anywhere, VCs will start to consider Plan Bs. Everyone considers Plan Bs when a project turns out badly. But getting acquired is always a Plan B. And when you talk about someone's "aim" when doing things, you're talking about Plan A.
Saying VCs aim to sell companies is like saying that if I try as hard as I can to get an A in a class and get a B, I was aiming to get Bs. That is just not what the word "aim" means. It's more like I accept the inevitability of Bs, since As are hard to get. Similarly, VCs accept the inevitability of acquisitions, because IPOs are hard to get.
In accordance with my new principle that once I have to start talking about the definitions of the words I'm using, the thread is doomed, I'm done now.
Paul, you're winding up in these "having to start talking about definitions" situations because you choose to describe businesses that produce millions in profits every year as "not going anywhere". At my very last job, I saw a company doing mid-8-figures profits experience pressure to exit. Pressure to exit later in life is a real hazard of accepting VC, just as pressure not to exit early in life is as well.
You don't, by the way, need to announce that you're "done now". That's passive-agressive. You can just "be done".
LPs care about IRR and liquidity. That causes VCs who are concerned about satisfying their LPs to also care about fund IRR and liquidity.
Sometimes, there is a tradeoff between liquidity and IRR. Groupon could have sold for $6bn, or perhaps they could IPO at $15bn. There, the board members decided that the prospect of improved IRR exceeded the delay in liquidity.
It's not an accurate representation to state that VCs only care about liquidity when a company isn't going anywhere: given that it's a tradeoff, and that liquidity has heightened importance the older the fund, VCs will push for liquidity even in investments in companies that are certainly doing better than "not going anywhere". The IRRs might be good, but their LPs may really want their money back after ten years, and are willing to sacrifice the IRRs to such an extent that a pretty good return just isn't good enough.
sure, and the average man on the street may prefer that he become a multi-millionaire within a year. However, that sort of preference isn't as important as the realistic outcomes that a VC aims for.
Unfortunately, I don't have specific data to back this up, but my sense is that very few VCs get to invest in blockbuster hits like Google (and as I mentioned, Google didn't take VC investment until they had already developed great technology and a great monetization strategy. So investment in Google was at a much higher valuation than what you'd expect for the typical VC deal)
Again without specific data, my sense is that most money-making deals (for investors) are deals like the YouTube acquisition or other much smaller acquisitions ........ and I also think that most VC-funded companies make little or no money for the investors (and either crash or go through firesales).
Acquisitions are never what VCs aim for. They aim for big, independent companies. They rarely hit that target, but it's always what they're aiming for.
Angels are different. Angels are willing to invest in a startup whose only likely good outcome is an acquisition. But VCs will not even consider making a series A investment in a startup that doesn't have a credible plan for getting to the kind of revenues that would support an IPO.
A VC's goal and responsibility is to maximize returns on investment. Imo changing the world etc. is just meaningless PR-speak for most of them. They'd be violating their fiduciary responsibilities if they really believed that changing the world was their primary goal and not maximizing ROI.
Now, it is true that a company (like Google) could maximize ROI and yet change the world by being a large independent company. However, this exception doesn't prove the rule.
My point is that a good VC can't afford to be divorced from reality. In practice, VCs do seem to understand that their primary aim is to maximize ROI (and that this aim is more often achieved through being acquired and not by being a large independent company)
Of course, all of this is opinion, but in the absence of data proving otherwise, I'm going to stick with my opinion :)
I've never really liked the term "lifestyle business" and I don't know who invented it. But I think it is a useful distinction, even for the people starting them. Is your goal for the company to make yourself a nice living, or do you want it to grow into something bigger than would be needed to achieve that?
It's false that VCs want companies to be acquired. They would much prefer that they continued to grow as independent companies, like Google or Facebook. Those are the big successes that generate most of the returns in the VC business.