#10 It is a Money Game
The end of organic growth: why betting big is the only way
Building with an old-school startup mindset is slowing you down.
There is a romantic idea about building a startup.
That if you have a great idea, work hard, and care deeply, things will somehow work out. That the universe rewards intention. That the product will sell itself. That if you just do the right things, growth will follow naturally.
But let’s be honest.
That is not how the game is played anymore.
The red ocean reality
The startup world today is messy, crowded, and fast.
There are no fresh markets waiting for you to stumble upon them. No untapped niches with a clear path to dominance. Every category is competitive. Every customer already has options; even if they are not perfect ones.
We love to talk about blue oceans, but those oceans do not really exist. Everything is a red ocean now.
Even if you create something new, you are not competing in a vacuum. You are competing for time, attention, and money; and those are finite.
Think about it. Tennis competes with padel, with pilates, with Netflix, with everything that could take up someone’s Saturday morning.
Your product competes not only with direct competitors; but with every alternative your customer has.
Drop the old-school playbook
If you are still building with a 2010 mindset, you are in trouble.
The idea that a great product will naturally rise to the top is seductive; but misleading.
Distribution wins.
Storytelling wins.
Speed wins.
And all of those, in some form, require capital.
Let’s talk about one of the most dangerous qualities in entrepreneurship: naivety.
Naivety is not stupidity; it is a kind of hopeful optimism.
It is thinking that belief alone will be enough. That being lean means you never need to spend. That you will be the exception to the rule.
I started naive
I believed I could go big without going all in.
That if I built something meaningful, people would come.
That word of mouth would carry it.
That I could test ideas without really betting on them.
Wrong.
Here is what I have learned the hard way.
To go far and fast, you have to take risks. Real ones. Financial ones.
Most of us say we are okay with risk; but when it comes down to it, we hesitate.
A €5K marketing experiment feels like a waste.
A paid pilot feels too early.
A freelancer’s day rate feels too high.
And so we delay decisions. We try to be lean and organic; until we have burned months doing nothing that moved the needle.
You do not have to raise VC, but you do have to bet
Bootstrapping can work. There are success stories, no doubt.
But many of those took years. And even then, they often were not built from nothing; they were built from savings, side jobs, angel money, or sheer privilege.
If that is your path, great. Just be honest about what it requires.
But if you want to grow quickly—if you are serious about finding product-market fit in a matter of months, not years—you need to be ready to spend to learn.
Here is the model that helps me.
Test 10 scrappy ideas with €10 each.
Double down on 2 ideas with €100.
Invest €1,000 in the one with traction.
Scale with €10,000 once you know it works.
This is not reckless; this is how you learn fast, with intention.
It is how you fail faster, smarter.
Figma did not just get lucky
They raised millions before they had a real product.
They spent four years building, testing, and discarding.
Until they landed on collaborative design; that is when things clicked.
The capital was not used to scale something that already worked; it was used to find what could work.
We have learned the same at Kaatch. Some bets flopped. Others surprised us.
But the breakthrough moments came after risk.
The best partnerships came from small paid experiments.
The best messaging came from putting budget behind testing.
The best services came from investing in what users actually wanted.
You cannot find gold without digging.
And you cannot dig fast without tools. Those tools cost money.
The mindset shift
You do not need millions in the bank.
But you do need to think like someone who is willing to bet.
Do not build slowly just to feel safe.
Do not wait for permission.
Do not think that being frugal is the same as being smart.
This is a money game.
And that is okay.
Because capital is not just about growth; it is about staying alive long enough to learn what matters.
So if you are not playing the money game yet; maybe it is time you start.