Build a user base with a great free product, abuse that user base for money until it leaves you for some competitor. Build social capital, spend it. The market, on average, doesn't just want profits from a tech company, it wants significant short-term growth in either revenues or userbase, and if the latter reaches saturation the former will occur.
> The market, on average, doesn't just want profits from a tech company, it wants significant short-term growth in either revenues or userbase, and if the latter reaches saturation the former will occur.
Small correction: it's not the "The market" that wants that, its the owner/investors/stock holders that want it.
Which is why I have an easier time trusting a small company owned by its founders, than a big, publicly traded company.
(Iirc github is still privately owned, but they have taken significant investments, so it's somewhere in between).
