Monday, February 19, 2007

20% growth per week is far too low

Check out this one-page article in Inc. magazine, particularly the section near the bottom entitled "Build the brand" that's from the Chairman of the Board of New York Angels:
HedgeStop's audience growth rate of 20 percent a week is far too low. If you project that over two years, the site still would not have as many visitors as some of its competitors, such as Young Money, which has about 1.2 million users. If Carroll and Carlevato can get this site to the point where traffic is doubling each week, they may be able to attract investors. (Emphasis mine.)
Let's get this straight. A 20% growth per week is (more than) a doubling every month. Over two years, that would be "only" a 171-million-fold growth. (Hm, maybe 20% is only an estimate, rounded up from 15%. That still grows traffic by 2-million-fold.)

Who knows what planet VC's are living on these days. The doubling per week that the Chairman wants, over the same two year period that they use, would lead to a market of 1031 users, assuming they have just 1 right now.

VC's don't really seem any smarter this time around.