The Flieber Scarcity Mistake: What This CEO Learned Raising 5 Years of Runway in a Hot Market

 

The Flieber Scarcity Mistake: What This CEO Learned Raising 5 Years of Runway in a Hot Market

In 2020, Fabricio Miranda made a mistake that most founders would kill for: he raised too much money.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Fabricio Miranda, CEO and Co-Founder of Flieber, shared something you rarely hear from venture-backed founders—regret about successful fundraising. Not because he couldn’t close investors. Because he raised five years of runway when market conditions made it easy.

“I raised my last round, I raised over two and a half years ago, and I still have over 30 months of Runway. So I raised like five years of funds, which makes absolutely no sense.”

This is Fabricio’s seventh company. His first six were bootstrapped. And the lesson he learned challenges conventional wisdom about startup fundraising.

The Market That Made Everything Easy

The timing tells the story. Fabricio was already generating revenue pre-COVID, hitting $500,000 in ARR within three months of launching.

“It was easy to raise funds because first I had a very early motion sales motion, and I was able to get very soon, I was already in the $500,000 in ARR in like three months of company. So I was able to prove the model that it works, that there’s demand and etcetera.”

Then COVID hit. The market went crazy.

“I raised a little bit pre Covid, but the vast majority I raised during COVID the market was crazy. So it wasn’t hard to raise funds.”

Easy fundraising sounds like a founder’s dream. But Fabricio had pattern recognition from six bootstrapped companies. He’d learned something that venture markets make you forget.

The Hidden Cost of Abundant Capital

The problem with raising five years of runway isn’t about dilution. It’s about what abundant capital does to decision-making.

“In hindsight, I would do differently. All of my other companies would bootstrap them. That’s the first. Flieber is the first company that I raised capital with, VC’s, and I had no experience with that.”

When you have five years of runway, urgency disappears. You can hire too early. You can build the team you want rather than need. You can defer hard decisions.

“I ended up abiding to the generous schizophrenia of the market and raising a lot more than I actually needed.”

The phrase “generous schizophrenia of the market” is perfect. The market told founders to grow at all costs while also rewarding unit economics. To hire aggressively while being capital efficient.

With abundant capital, you can try to do everything. Which means you do nothing particularly well.

What Scarcity Forces

The contrast with Fabricio’s previous companies is stark. Six bootstrapped businesses. Six times forced to make clear decisions. Six times constrained to focus only on what generated revenue.

“I think scarcity creates creativity, generates creativity, and I think that’s one thing that we made a mistake by raising too early.”

This isn’t romantic founder storytelling. It’s observation about organizational behavior under different capital constraints.

When you’re bootstrapped, every hire must justify itself immediately. Every product decision must serve paying customers. Every marketing channel must demonstrate ROI.

When you have five years of runway, you can be speculative. You can hire for roles you think you’ll need eventually. You can build features customers might want someday.

The problem is that “might” and “could” are where agility dies.

The Agility Tax

Fabricio is explicit about what abundant capital cost: “We grew the company too early. We grew the team more than we should. We lost a lot of agility in the process, so there was some adjustments to do because of that.”

This gets glossed over in most startup narratives. Press releases announce the fundraise. Blog posts celebrate hiring. Nobody writes about unwinding those decisions 18 months later.

But founders know. You hire for the business you think you’re building, not the business you have. Then you spend the next year figuring out what your actual business is while managing a team sized for a different company.

The agility tax shows up everywhere. Want to pivot your ICP? You have sales reps hired to sell to the old one. Want to rebuild the product? You have engineers committed to the current architecture. Want to change your GTM motion? You have an org structure built around the old one.

“All of my other companies would bootstrap them” isn’t nostalgia. It’s recognition that constraint forces clarity.

The Bootstrapper’s Advantage

Fabricio’s perspective is unusual because he has the comparison point. Most VC-backed founders have never built without external capital.

Six bootstrapped companies taught Fabricio that scarcity isn’t the enemy of creativity—it’s the catalyst. When you can’t hire your way out of problems, you solve them with better processes. When you can’t outspend competitors, you find more efficient channels. When you can’t build everything, you ruthlessly prioritize.

These aren’t nice-to-have skills. They’re essential for sustainable businesses. And abundant capital lets you defer learning them.

The Current Reality

Despite the “mistake,” Flieber is strong. They have 30+ months of runway. They’ve made adjustments to regain agility. The business model works.

But Fabricio’s reflection matters because markets have shifted. The abundant capital environment of 2020-2022 is gone. Founders raising today face a market where capital efficiency matters more than growth at all costs.

In that environment, his lesson becomes timely: “Scarcity creates creativity, generates creativity.”

The Takeaway

For founders facing fundraising decisions, the lesson isn’t to avoid raising capital. It’s to resist the temptation to raise the maximum available just because you can.

Ask yourself: How much do you actually need to reach the next meaningful milestone? Not how much would be comfortable. Not how much would let you hire everyone you want. How much do you need to prove the next thing that matters?

That number is probably lower than what investors are willing to give you. And taking less might be the better decision—not because it’s virtuous, but because it preserves the forcing function that drives good decision-making.

Fabricio learned this across seven companies. The market is making it relevant again.