How to Value Your Unicorn Without Actually Valuing It
Forget revenue, ignore earnings, and convince the world your startup is priceless.
By Poppy Vantablack, Tax Shelter Tourism & Exile Planning
Understanding the Unintelligible
Have you ever wondered why some companies can claim they’re worth billions while barely turning a profit, or worse, actively losing money? Welcome to the modern startup valuation circus, where imagination, narrative, and investor gullibility matter more than spreadsheets and financial statements.
Here’s the thing: valuation is a story. It’s not accounting; it’s performance theater. The trick is knowing the metrics that don’t matter, exaggerating the ones that sound impressive, and never letting pesky details like actual cash flow or profitability get in the way.
Here’s how…
Step 1: Obsessively Flaunt Potential
Forget what you earn today. Investors want to know what you might earn tomorrow—or, better yet, the day after that. Highlight future markets, industry growth, and your disruptive vision. Don’t get bogged down by numbers; paint a world where your idea is already dominating.
Step 2: Cherry-pick the Right Comparables
Find companies with jaw-dropping valuations and compare yourself to them—even if they operate in different countries, sectors, or dimensions of reality. Multiples1 are magic. Price-to-revenue ratios2? Irrelevant. EBITDA3? Optional. What matters is the story you tell about your supposed “category leadership.”
Step 3: Inflate Non-financial Metrics
User counts, engagement rates, email sign-ups, clicks, downloads, Instagram followers… everything can be weaponized to make your startup look like a juggernaut. Even if those users never pay, never convert, or never engage, the narrative is that your “network effect” is exponential and inevitable.
Step 4: Convince Investors the Gap Doesn’t Matter
The difference between what your company earns and what you claim it’s worth? Totally negotiable. Present your valuation with confidence, insist on the uniqueness of your model, and sprinkle in terms like “hypergrowth,” “AI-enabled synergies,” or “market expansion trajectory.” If done right, the math becomes an abstract suggestion rather than a requirement.
Step 5: Seal the Deal with Exclusivity
Make investors feel they are part of something rare—your unicorn is one of a kind, and missing out now is existentially catastrophic. Scarcity and FOMO are more effective than actual financial performance in justifying a ludicrous valuation.
Bonus tip: Keep raising rounds. Each time you raise, repeat steps 1–5. Investors are more likely to believe prior valuations were fair because they themselves signed off on them.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, valuation is a psychology exercise, not an arithmetic one. Your company is worth whatever you can convince the market it is worth. And if anyone asks for evidence, just tell them, with a solemn nod, that revenue is passé, growth narrative is king, and everyone else is still stuck counting dollars like a mere mortal.
Invest Now While Our Valuation Is Still Attainable
Whatever that means. Just join the cult of financial illusion. Stay ahead while the spreadsheets stay behind.
Not a Cult (Unless You Want It To Be)
Join the cult of financial illusion. Stay ahead while the spreadsheets stay behind.
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True Grift
EBITDA, Unicorn, Hypergrowth, FOMO, Narrative Multiples. See full Grifter’s Glossary.
It Must Be Said…
False Positive Labs is for entertainment and mild cathartic purposes only. Not financial advice. Not investment advice. Not even remotely responsible.
Multiples – A magical number that investors use to justify spending more than a company earns. Usually expressed as a multiple of revenue, profit, or imaginary market domination. Example: “Our valuation is 10x revenue” = “Trust me, it’s worth ten times what we actually make.”
Price-to-Revenue Ratio (P/R) – The ratio of what someone is willing to pay for a company versus what it actually earns in sales. High P/R ratios mean investors are either visionary geniuses or hopelessly gullible.
EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Actual Meaningful Accountability) – A glorified financial measure that removes all the boring parts of running a business so your startup looks like it’s printing money. Often used to distract from the fact that profits are imaginary