My experience after pitching to an old school VC/angel • Hacker News Board

Re: My experience after pitching to an old school VC/angel

#11

Post by djb_hackernews » Fri, May 06, 2011, 1:14 PM UTC

I don't really seem the problem in his line of questioning.

Isn't this Paul Grahams goto question? Where is the revenue?

I wonder what your expectations actually were for this meeting? And what you imagine pitches would be like if you met with any of the SV heavy hitters.

They won't be any different. Getting people to give you money is hard work, and I get the impression you think the money is easier in SV? So easy in fact VC's don't bother asking questions about revenue and market research.

Plus, you don't even have a signup page? What do you have?

I'd get my ducks in a row before I started asking people for money if I were you.

Re: My experience after pitching to an old school VC/angel

#12

Post by hnbd » Fri, May 06, 2011, 8:11 PM UTC

Yes, I'm sorry to join the crowd, but it does seem like you need to adjust your expectations.

Ideas are great but what's better is an idea with a business plan; especially to an investor. This is especially the case if your idea doesn't clearly identify a revenue source. Unless you have a reputation or history creating successful start-ups, you shouldn't expect to just have someone take your word and believe that your start-up will generate revenue. There may be investors out there that just take chances like that...I wouldn't know. But I still fail to see the fault in his expectations I guess.

Re: My experience after pitching to an old school VC/angel

#13

Post by aherlambang » Fri, May 06, 2011, 11:14 PM UTC

hnbd wrote: post #12

Yes, I'm sorry to join the crowd, but it does seem like you need to adjust your expectations. Ideas are great but what's better is an idea with a business plan; especially to an investor. This is especially the case if your idea doesn't clearly identify a revenue source. Unless you have a reputation or history creating successful start-ups, you shouldn't expect to just have someone take your word and believe that you…

It seems that you guys are misunderstanding my point here, I take this VC's point of having to show a proof of somewhat the business be profitable. I understand this very well. If I am positioned as himself, I would be asking the same thing.

What I don't like about it is the business plan that he's asking us to write.

I know getting money from people is hard, I am not expecting him to write me off a $100k check based on what I have. My point is that is it necessary for a business at this point.

Re: My experience after pitching to an old school VC/angel

#14

Post by guynamedloren » Sat, May 07, 2011, 9:22 AM UTC

I'm curious to know more about exactly how you plan on acquiring your first 500k users and how long you expect that to take. Unless you have mad connections, 500k users is not exactly a walk in the park. If you aren't pulling revenue at that point, still haven't developed a business plan, and have zero investment, your startup might be dead by then. This reasoning fails if you're bootstrapped, which would leave me wondering why you're trying to raise seed funds anyway.