121. Eternal Optimists & Achievable Valuations feat. Rachel McCrickard, CEO @ Motivo Health

I have found,and I don't know how many other founders do this,but I get my hopes up a lot.Oftentimes founders are eternal optimists.Every single pitch that I did,I would leave it,I would tell my husband that went fantastic.They're definitely gonna invest in us.They loved me!And then they would pass and I'd be like,oh man,you know,what did I get wrong there?I do think it's helpful to the company that I always think Motivo's gonna win.I think that mindset is very helpful to the company.But it does give you quite whiplash when all of a sudden,it doesn't go your way and you think,oh man,what went wrong here?The truth is,is that most investors pass and sometimes it's in your control and sometimes it's not.One good piece of advice that I remember hearing from and very early investor of Motivo,Michael Tone,"he said,learn to love the fast no,the slow maybe is the worst possible thing."A fast no,for me is like,thank you so much.See you someday,wishing you well.I do wanna say,the importance of strong unit economics in the current climate.I think that historically,it has been a raise,grow,grow,grow,grow,like keep going and.For us,we've been trying to be very intentional.We got lucky in the sense that we didn't raise at the top of the market,we raised at a very achievable valuation.Sometimes people are like,oh my God,that was so smart of you.And I'm like,yeah,that's what it was.It was super smart.Like I,I,it was totally intentional to get a lower valuation.But in this market it's absolutely to our benefit.We have a very achievable valuation.We don't have to lay off employees.We are limiting our growth to only the headcount that we absolutely need to hit our sales targets.We have22month runway,more than enough to make it through this current climate.I think as founders,you have to think about what is the path to profitability for us?Is there a path to profitability?In this climate it's a lot more important than I think it's ever been before.The founders and companies that are gonna win in this climate are gonna be ones who are being mindful of their burn,who are building solutions that create more automation and less manual processes so they can cut down on their headcount.