Three years ago, Chris Thompson told more than a dozen venture capitalists he didn’t want their funding to help expand his startup, which helps people who are struggling with addiction. Then he killed the company’s only source of revenue.
It was a huge risk for Sober Sidekick, his app—but it turned out to be an easy decision. The venture capitalists had wanted Thompson to increase the amount of money his company collected by referring users to rehabilitation centers, from nearly $850,000 annually at the time. But Thompson, who had built the social media platform while he was himself recovering from addiction in a sober living facility, had become uncomfortable with how those rehabilitation centers were making money. Instead of increasing ties to those centers, he wanted to cut them.
