Startups must get serious

Lessons from The Joker

Startups must get serious, like The Joker Yes the movie in it’s most recent incarnation. Why so? Over 50000 movies are made a year. Only a hundred are worth investing in. But the hit and miss nature of movie making has meant that studios have become more reluctant to fund innovative scripts preferring instead to fund unending sequels in a franchise. Basically safe incremental innovation So when The Joker was first floated very little interest in funding it was apparent from the Hollywood establishment. It ended up being funded by unconventional angel investors and investment funds. The $50m was tough to raise. The results? It recorded $1bn shortly after release international. Ten times more than the expectation. And now a few Oscars including Best Actor. Lesson for startups. Don’t expect the establishment to get your wild risky idea. They are too busy with low risk incremental ventures. So they miss out on these 10x ventures. Just like legacy organizations in all industries.

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