---
title: "Making big bets in business"
description: "The post argues that startups should pursue asymmetric outcomes: bets with potentially large upside and limited, manageable downside, rather than optimizing for average advice or minimizing every risk. Drawing on the founders’ experience building Paribus and Ramp, it applies this principle to choosing a problem space, hiring, vendors, product development, and fundraising. An outsized seed round enabled Ramp to pursue financial services despite high barriers to entry, while early hiring favored exceptional, fast-growing people over candidates who matched every competency checklist. It also recommends testing scrappy vendors, listening to customer problems rather than proposed solutions, and selecting reputable investors with clean terms. Ramp’s counterexample is credit risk: because revenue is about 1% of lending, a mistake can cost roughly 100 times its reward, so threatening risks should be isolated from bolder bets."
---

# Making big bets in business

[Ramp](https://yomu.fyi/company/ramp) · Karim Atiyeh · Oct 12, 2021

**Type:** Explainer

## Summary

The post argues that startups should pursue asymmetric outcomes: bets with potentially large upside and limited, manageable downside, rather than optimizing for average advice or minimizing every risk. Drawing on the founders’ experience building Paribus and Ramp, it applies this principle to choosing a problem space, hiring, vendors, product development, and fundraising. An outsized seed round enabled Ramp to pursue financial services despite high barriers to entry, while early hiring favored exceptional, fast-growing people over candidates who matched every competency checklist. It also recommends testing scrappy vendors, listening to customer problems rather than proposed solutions, and selecting reputable investors with clean terms. Ramp’s counterexample is credit risk: because revenue is about 1% of lending, a mistake can cost roughly 100 times its reward, so threatening risks should be isolated from bolder bets.

## Context

The post addresses how startups can make a limited number of high-impact decisions when failure is common and time and resources are constrained. It distinguishes opportunities with asymmetric upside from risks where the cost of failure is disproportionately damaging, particularly as a customer base grows.

## Approach / What changed

It presents asymmetric outcomes through coin-flip and poker analogies, then applies the framework to problem selection, early hiring, vendor choices, product design, fundraising, and credit risk. The examples emphasize accepting manageable downside, seeking 10x potential, and avoiding risks whose losses could threaten the company.

## Takeaways

- An asymmetric bet may offer a potential 10x payoff for a 1x loss, but the company must be able to absorb the downside before taking it.
- Ramp hired exceptional early builders for their growth potential despite gaps in fintech experience or communication skills, rather than requiring every checklist item.
- Because Ramp’s revenue is about 1% of the money it lends, a lending mistake can cost roughly 100 times its reward; this risk was treated as an area requiring caution.

**Tags:** [Fintech](https://yomu.fyi/topic/fintech), [Hiring](https://yomu.fyi/topic/hiring)

- Source: [Ramp](https://builders.ramp.com/post/making-big-bets-in-business)
- Source URL: https://builders.ramp.com/post/making-big-bets-in-business
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-09-01T01:33:25.362Z

[Read original post](https://builders.ramp.com/post/making-big-bets-in-business)