How To Become an Overnight Success With Your Startup

The path to overnight success has 4 phases. How quickly can you get through each one?

image by master1305

How long does it take for a startup to achieve “overnight success” and what does it take to get there?

Mistral AI just raised a record $113 million exactly one month after formation. This is going to go poorly. Maybe not for Mistral themselves, with a founding team of former Google and Meta folks, challenging OpenAI for the throne of Generative A.I. The jury will be out on that one for a while, as they now have plenty of screw-up money to burn through.

The damage will be done when the overnight success window of Generative A.I. slams shut. I’m concerned for:

• The next 100 startups who raise obscene amounts of FOMO VC on “me too” ideas that are more pseudo-science than viable businesses.
• The next 1,000 startups who spend chunks of their time and money fitting the square peg of “A.I.” (my quotes) into the round hole of their business model.
• The next 10,000 founders who make painful and costly decisions for their startup in the name of chasing Mistral’s $135 million overnight success.

It’s like a pyramid of failure built on a base of plaster.