VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
1–10 of 261 posts
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#2Wow. This post was marked dead within a minute of it being posted. I "vouched" for it, though given my pariah status on HN for calling out SV on social issues (such as racism), I'm surprised my "vouch" had any affect.
I have a lot more to say but HN doesn't really welcome my point of view, so...
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#3Wow. This post was marked dead within a minute of it being posted. I "vouched" for it, though given my pariah status on HN for calling out SV on social issues (such as racism), I'm surprised my "vouch" had any affect. I have a lot more to say but HN doesn't really welcome my point of view, so...
That site has been banned on HN for 7 years, for whatever reason. Posts get autokilled when a site is banned.
You're certainly not a pariah on HN. But would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebaity comments? You've done it a lot, and those comments usually get downvoted, which is a correct use of downvotes. Your point of view is as welcome as anyone else's, if you'd express it more substantively.
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#4Does she offer any actual evidence that she was rejected due to racism? She just seems to assume it.
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#5Wow. This post was marked dead within a minute of it being posted. I "vouched" for it, though given my pariah status on HN for calling out SV on social issues (such as racism), I'm surprised my "vouch" had any affect. I have a lot more to say but HN doesn't really welcome my point of view, so...
That site has been banned on HN for 7 years, for whatever reason. Posts get autokilled when a site is banned. You're certainly not a pariah on HN. But would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebaity comments? You've done it a lot, and those comments usually get downvoted, which is a correct use of downvotes. Your point of view is as welcome as anyone else's, if you'd express it more substantively.
Hello Dang,
Could you please share more details on sites getting banned? I did a quick glance of the site in question, doesn't see much to get banned.
Thanks
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#6Does she offer any actual evidence that she was rejected due to racism? She just seems to assume it.
Please don't post flamebait or snark to Hacker News. Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines? Both of those are deprecated, and there's this, too:
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#7If there is VC racism, doesn't that also mean there is a market opportunity for VC money to focus exclusively on African American tech startups. Even if there aren't many, there appears to be zero competition selecting investments.
The author is rightfully frustrated. But instead of focussing on lack of interest in their app, maybe there's a bigger opportunity here.
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#8This post would be a lot more persuasive with the pitch deck, or some growth numbers, or something indicating the app is in fact on a success track and is the type of app that is potentially VC scale.
I found no mentions on reddit. On google there is a single review on Capterra, no other results.
The Canadian ios app has no reviews, can’t check US on my phone. The Google play version has 88 reviews, but all but 3-4 of them are from Jan 26-Feb 2, with only one since, in May.
So some evidence of traction, product market fit, growth, or the general idea behind the app (pitch deck) would help with the argument.
The author does highlight an issue of how to get funded if you don’t have an existing network though. Network based introductions seems to be the norm for VC from what I’ve heard. And to be clear, there may be racism involved: my point is it’s hard to tell without knowing more about the app’s and whether it seems plausibly a fit for VC. Once an app has been around for a year you need more evidence of traction.
Edit: I should mention that if the app is indeed somewhere between “can be bootstrapped” and “needs VC investment” then there are are new options like Tinyseed aimed at this middle ground of company. Another commented pointed out that a competing app has 1-10 employees, which is not VC scale.
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
That site has been banned on HN for 7 years, for whatever reason. Posts get autokilled when a site is banned. You're certainly not a pariah on HN. But would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebaity comments? You've done it a lot, and those comments usually get downvoted, which is a correct use of downvotes. Your point of view is as welcome as anyone else's, if you'd express it more substantively.
Hello Dang, Could you please share more details on sites getting banned? I did a quick glance of the site in question, doesn't see much to get banned. Thanks
There are lots of reasons why a site might get banned, but the main ones are when they are spam or consistently a source of off-topic or low-quality articles.
In this case it's hard to say because 2013 was a long time ago. It might have been because someone was oversubmitting or trying to promote the site on HN. That's another reason why we might ban a site.
This site looks like an online magazine focused on the SF Bay Area. When I look at the submissions I see a penchant for sensational titles and a lot of articles that aren't on topic for HN, but also a few articles that would make good HN submissions, except possibly for the titles. Two examples of good ones:
https://thebolditalic.com/the-remarkable-story-of-the-golden...
https://thebolditalic.com/how-tech-is-deciding-who-gets-to-g... (good article, bad title)
For that category of site, we generally don't ban the domain, but rather downweight it to countervail the sensationalism. I'll switch this one over.
Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
#10The part about Nguyen was frustrating. It's hard to imagine a more honest hypocrisy than explicitly saying, on the record, that one will be forthcoming and helpful towards the marginalized, and ending up being just as dismissive and unengaged as everybody else.