Founder Spotlight Ep2: From 110% Loss in Revenue to Collaborating with Netflix: Steven Zhao’s Sandbox VR Story

Steven Zhao is the founder and CEO of Sandbox VR, which I had the privilege of investing in 2017. He tells his up and down story of building a company in a down cycle, and shares some learnings to help other founders who may be going through a similar situation.

Matt Lee: “Anything to share with founders to help overcome this tough period?”

Steven Zhao: “Fundraising will be extremely hard. So whatever capital you have, whatever runway you currently have, how can you extend it as much as you can. If you are a founder where you have some level of product market fit and you are generating revenue, it’s about things that you do that correlates to your profit margin or your total revenue, and if it doesn’t have any correlation, you cut it out. And you take a step back that is just relentless focus.”

Matt Lee: “What was the decision process like to raise on a lower valuation and what advice would you give current founders that may be contemplating that?”

Steven Zhao: “Generally you are in startup because you believe your company can be extremely big. It really doesn’t matter if you kind of shave off some ownership here and there, what really matters is like how big can this be, and that ownership in itself, and that value in itself that you can provide for you, your shareholders, your team that believe in you and the world that interfaces with your product. Yeah that’s what matters.”