And who said Tequila was bad? Congrats guys! Great example for the rest of the country.

Good point Luke! - Developers have some of the best ideas! There's no pre-set formula of what makes a good co-founder. It's usually personality fit and respect for each other's skill first and foremost. Many times that means two developers.

Fantastic, can't be more excited to watch this come together! - If feels odd for me to be posting from the outside, but I'll get used to it. Big thanks Maura! Thanks Boris Wertz for diving in.

testing comment

Touraj, I think you've been in the valley too long. :-) The world is a big place, and the magnitude of valuation swings is much more pronounced there.

I'm talking about only debt financing specific user acquisition channels that have proven to be lucrative.

Put it this way. If a user acquisition channels is not predictable enough to be trusted with borrowed money then selling equity might not be the answer either. It might be that the business just doesn't work, or at least that you should stop buying customers via that channel.

Touraj, I think you've been in the valley too long. :-) The world is a big place, and the magnitude of valuation swings is much more pronounced there.

But, I'm really only talking about debt financing specific user acquisition channels that have proven to be lucrative.

Put it this way. If a user acquisition channels is not predictable enough to be trusted with borrowed money then selling equity to finance them might not be the answer either. It might be that the business just doesn't work, or at least that you should stop buying customers via that channel.

Thanks Gary. Espresso is exactly who I was thinking about when I mentioned "specialty lenders" in my post, and I agree that banks won't be the first to do this. Maybe they'll never do it. But I am aware of others too.

The added benefits to this model for the lenders, equity investors and founders are quite material. Lenders don't have to wait for the elusive "Exit" in order to generate a return. The previous Seed & Series A investors will not get diluted by relentless rounds of later stage equity financing. And the founders will, in most cases, retain control of the company.

Sam, Very much appreciate your view point. That why I asked you for your thoughts. Calibrating theories is what trying to predict the future is all about. Perhaps it is an optimistic vision, but hey, I'm an entrepreneur and we're plagued with eternal optimism. That said, it is a vision of the future, and I never meant to suggest that this model is in existence today. So I can't point to any early examples, even though @IanHand mentioned some in a later comment. Although, this is not something that I see happening now, from my vantage point, I am suggesting that this could very well happen in the near future.

To believe, it takes a deep understanding of how systematized it has become to build Internet companies.

I thought you'd get a kick out of this post.... Agree, Banks wont be first to try this out. But I've been speaking to one very progressive bank about this and I can assure you that they're looking at it very seriously.

In the mean time, I fully expect that some of the companies I work with will put some of Gary's money to good use.