The Best Companies Waited Years Before Making Money

Something I find fascinating: many of the most successful companies didn’t make money for years.

Facebook → 5 years before serious revenue
Twitter → 4 years before ads
Pinterest → 4 years before monetization
Tesla → 5 years before the Roadster
SpaceX → 6 years before NASA contracts

The pattern? They focused on building the right product, driving adoption, and proving value first. Revenue came after.

Yet one of the biggest mistakes I see founders make is raising money too early—before they’ve proven growth. It’s tempting to raise money just to survive, but when that happens, pressure builds, expectations aren’t met, and many end up shutting down.

It’s a mistake I almost made myself. In the beginning, I chased investors to no end. But thankfully, I didn’t raise a massive amount of money before I learned better.

At Oatfin, we’re taking the same approach: building technology that solves critical problems for developers and DevOps teams. Because when you deliver real, outsized value—revenue follows.

💡 Sometimes the most important question isn’t how fast you can generate revenue—it’s how deeply you’re solving a real pain point.