Unlike the popular, and heavily hyped, assumption that unicorns would not be possible without VC and that getting VC means unicorn success, the reality is that most unicorn-entrepreneurs takeoff without VC interference because the VC portfolio has lots of flops, and very few flips and unicorns.
· The Flop: These are VC failures. Some never live up to the hope, while others, like WeWork, Theranos and FTX, don’t live up to the hype. The VCs may have been hoping for a Unicorn or a Fast Flip but ended up with a Fast Flop.
· The Flip: These are VC-Successes that are sold in a “fast” flip