Originally published on Growth by Design
This article was first published on the Growth by Design newsletter by Diraj Goel, CEO of GetFresh Ventures
If You Can’t Raise, Leapfrog Into Capital Instead
Solving "Hole in the Head" Problems for Scaling Companies That Are Too Sophisticated for Cheap Tools, and Too Cheap for Sophisticated Ones
In 2010, I was leading global IT and production systems and infrastructure at Vision Critical, now called Alida.
We were scaling fast. Sixteen offices. Thirteen countries. Hundreds of employees added in a few quarters.
What began as a services business was turning into a globally distributed SaaS platform for Fortune 500 clients - with real expectations and real volume.
But we were not spending like a tech unicorn.
Our growth was fueled by revenue and customer demand - not investor burn. Every dollar had to earn its place.
We were investing heavily in the product, infrastructure, and onboarding systems. Anything internal - HR, finance ops, admin tooling - was handled with duct tape and whatever could be kept running.
Enterprise suites like Oracle, SAP, or Workday?
Not even a consideration. Not because they could not solve our problems, but because they were designed for companies who could throw money at internal friction. We could not.
And that pattern still holds today.
In 2024, the fundi…
About Diraj Goel
Diraj is the CEO and Founder of GetFresh Ventures. He's an operator who has scaled companies to $100M+ revenue and helped 200+ fellow companies raise $500M+ collectively through the Growth by Design methodology.
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