One of the challenges you face as you build up your data capabilities is that your strategy can disappear behind the numbers. The numbers might not m… - Reid Hoffman

All human beings are entrepreneurs.

Slack had spent nearly five years and $ 17 million on development prior to its public launch in February 2014. Just two months later, before the end of April, it had raised another $ 43 million. Both of these investments took place before Slack had proven its revenue model and started generating significant sales. Slack’s freemium business model (offering a free service and encouraging users to upgrade later to becoming paying customers) meant that even after two months of rapid user growth, the company hadn’t proven its ability to make money. Fortunately for Slack and its investors, this aggressiveness paid off. As the initial wave of free users started converting to paid, Slack was able to raise an additional $ 120 million six months later to accelerate its growth even further.

It’s tempting to assume she achieved this despite the “Nos.” But in truth, each of those 148 “Nos” was a clue that ultimately made her business even stronger. Some sharpened her view on who her user was — and who her user wasn’t. Some helped her grasp how her competition might think. And some gave her an early warning about the ways her company might fail. At the end of the fundraising process alone, Kathryn had a roadmap marked with every potential pitfall she’d need to navigate around — and the unexplored territory she could explore ahead of any competitors.