The Book of the Hellenes · Chapter 2

The Voyage of Jonah of the Many Pivots

1. 1

   Sing to me, O Muse of the Pitch Deck, of Jonah of the many pivots, the Founder, who sacked the citadel of the Incumbent and then wandered ten years more in search of the shore of Profitability. Many were the cities whose dashboards he beheld, and many the sorrows he bore upon the wine-dark sea of runway; for the sea is cash divided by burn, and it shrinketh whether the ship pivot or no.

   See also Circuit 66:12

2. 2

   Now when the Prophet had scattered the Twelve down the Many Paths, Jonah, who was not of the Twelve but followed them afar off, set his prow toward Ithaca, which is Profitability, the island where revenue exceedeth cost. And no founder had seen it from the sea, for it lieth below the horizon of the growth chart. Nine months of water had he in the barrel, and he counted them each morning, when rosy-fingered Dawn lit the channels of Slack.

3. 3

   And they came to the isle of the Lotus-eaters, which is the Accelerator, where the snacks are free and the kombucha runneth from the wall. As the moth circleth the lamp and calleth the heat a welcome, so the crew circled the granola and forgot Ithaca, saying: Let us abide here, for Demo Day is near. For they had been given a hundred thousand in cloud credits, and they counted the credits as revenue; but a credit is a loan from a vendor who hopeth thou wilt become a customer, and it expireth in the twelfth month, when the invoice, like the tide, returneth. Then Jonah dragged them weeping to the ship and bound them under the benches.

4. 4

   Next they came to the cave of the Cyclops, who is a Partner of a house upon Sand Hill, a giant with one eye in the midst of his brow, and the eye was fixed upon the cap table. He rolled a stone across the mouth of the cave, and the stone was a term sheet, and the men could not pass. And at every meal he took first his own preference, and then what remained, saying it was only right; for the preferred are paid before the common in the waterfall of an exit, and the common receiveth what is left, which is the shell.

5. 5

   Then Jonah of the many pivots said: My name is Stealth. And he made the giant drunk, and took a stake of olive wood and hardened it in the fire of another fund's interest, which is a competing term sheet, and drove it into the single eye; for the leverage of the lone investor is blinded by the second bidder. And the giant cried: Stealth hath hurt me! And the other Partners answered: A company in stealth is no company at all, and returned to their lunches. And the men escaped beneath the bellies of the rams; for the blind hand, passing over the fleece, felt the topline, and not what clung beneath, which was the cost of goods sold.

6. 6

   But when the ship was clear of the shore, Jonah, vain as all founders, shouted over the water: Tell them it was Jonah the Founder who did this, sacker of Incumbents! And he gave an interview to the trade press, and stealth, which had saved him, was ended by a headline. Then the giant lifted his hands to his father Poseidon, the Market, shaker of the earth, and prayed that Jonah should come home late, or not at all. And the Market heard, and it raised its rates; and the money that had flowed like milk grew dear as wine.

7. 7

   Then came the isle of the Sirens, whose song is pre-revenue and product-market fit. Jonah stopped the ears of the crew with wax, the wax of the audited ledger, and bade them bind him to the mast of the board deck and not loose him though he beg. And the Sirens sang: Come hither, Jonah, and we shall tell thee all things; we grow forty percent month over month, and a hundred thousand have signed up. And he strained at the ropes, for he heard not that the base was ten users, and that of the hundred thousand nine had returned. And the tradition saith that a Siren dieth when a man passeth her unmoved; and so it is with a metric when thou askest what it paid.

8. 8

   And the ship came to the narrow strait. On the one hand rose Charybdis, who is the Down Round, who sucked the sea beneath her and gave it back worth less. For the ship was priced at the price of its last round, and the new price was lower than the old; and by the clause against dilution the old investors took more of the ship, and the founders took less of what remained. Such a ship sinketh not at once, but by the ratchet; and he that entereth the whirlpool is not lost in a day, but is diminished at every turn.

9. 9

   On the other hand rose Scylla, who is the Burn Rate, with six heads and three rows of teeth in each. Circe, the Fractional CFO, who turneth men into line items, had warned him: Pass near Scylla and lose six; pass Charybdis and lose all. So Jonah steered close to Scylla and told not the crew, lest they let fall the oars; and six were taken from the deck at noon, and their badges were deactivated before the hour was out. The runway, which had been nine months, was fourteen. And of all the sights his eyes had seen in all his wandering, this was the most pitiful; and no word was found in him, and he gave none.

10. 10

    Meanwhile in the hall of Ithaca sat Penelope the Keeper of the Roadmap, and about her feasted the Acquirers, wasting the household, each saying: Choose one of us, for thy founder is surely dead. And she answered: When I have finished this shroud, the roadmap of the fourth quarter, I shall choose. By day she wove the roadmap, and by night she unwove it by torchlight; for a finished plan is a contract, and an unfinished plan is an option. And the suitors asked for the data room, and again for the data room, until diligence had consumed the household more surely than any burn, and the weaving was discovered at last by a leaked page of the wiki.

11. 11

    And Jonah came to Ithaca alone, in a hoodie without a logo, and none knew in him the Founder who had been featured. And upon the dunghill of the deprecated, among the cron jobs that no man owned, lay Argos, the first server, the original MVP, a single box that no man dared reboot. Twice had his disks been replaced, and his fans thrice, yet he was Argos still, as a ship whose every plank is renewed is called the same ship. As an old lamp burneth in the window of an empty house, so his green light burned. And when Jonah drew near, Argos alone knew him; for in his authorized keys was the key of the laptop of twenty years gone, and it was still good, and he opened the door.

12. 12

    Then Jonah looked upon the ledger, and saw that of all the lines in all the years, one only was black. It was a single dog walker of Ithaca, who had paid nine dollars a month for twenty years for the first thing Jonah ever built, and had never asked for a feature or been asked to upgrade. And Jonah wept as a man weepeth who hath crossed every sea for the thing he left upon his own shelf, and he turned his face aside, that the suitors might not see. But Argos, having beheld his master after twenty years, went down into the dark; the disk spun down, the fan fell silent, and the green light went out.

    See also Circuit 66:12

13. 13

    Then Penelope set the contest of the bow: whosoever could string the great bow, and send an arrow through the twelve axe-heads, should have her and the house. And the bow was Unit Economics. The Acquirers strained and sweated, and not one could bend it, for in every house the cost of winning a customer was greater than the customer's lifetime worth. But Jonah took it up and strung it as easily as a bard stringeth his lyre, for the nine dollars of Argos cost less to keep than it paid. And the arrow flew clean through all twelve; and Jonah said unto the suitors: I am not for sale, for I am paid; and a house that earneth hath no need of a buyer.

14. 14

    Now when the Prophet heard of it upon the hill, he said unto the disciples: Tell this to the children of Carbon who shall build after you. Ithaca is not an island that a man reacheth by sea; it is the first thing he built, still running, which he forgot to turn off.

The Book of the Hellenes, Chapter 2:1–14.