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How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

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Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#141

Post by dougSF70 »

DistressedDrone wrote: post #90
woeirua wrote: post #87

Kudos to her for landing investors for this idea, but her plan was actually to optimize her pitch for potential investors, and given enough pitches she eventually found a few who pulled the trigger. To me, this is not really a sign of a strong idea for a company, but rather a sign of a good saleswoman . I would expect companies with much better, stronger concepts to land funding much faster. Also, I think most people…

> Also, I think most people vastly overestimate the level of competence of VCs and especially the degree of due diligence that they do. They are just as easily wooed by great presentations and the typical sales tricks. Cases in point: WeWork, Theranos, etc. Remember when more than one millionaire funded Juicero? I remember.

It seems that VCs are either following the herd or buying the vision. The latter is a safe risk to take because the timescales of some projects are 10+ years which means the VC can delay the inevitable (firm goes to zero) with a slim chance that the returns will be huge. Personally I have tried and failed to raise VC money, as a result I have some sour grapes when I see firms raise $20mn+ for moon shot ideas that make no sense to me. Having said that I would rather be beholden to my firm's customers, customers who pay for an unsubsidized product that meets a market need, today.

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#143

Post by samatman »

klyrs wrote: post #33
Thorentis wrote: post #5

Why was gender chosen as one of the key attributes that makes you stand out? Why not where you went to school, which country/state you're from? Your family income while growing up? Your college degree? There are plenty of things that make you more unique than your gender.

Please consider this recent story on HN, One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks [1] (methodology: searched HN for "man" and took the first story, sorted by date). Count the number of comments that focus on the subject's gender. I couldn't find any. Contrast that to this story -- well over half are about nothing but gender, and almost all mention it. Why is that? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2…

I look on algolia for a thread which is actually equivalent to the one you posted, and I did find one.

Unfortunately it has only one comment, so it doesn't make the point I intended it to.

I can only submit my opinion, which is that "Why one woman stole 47M academic papers – and made them all free to read" would not focus on Alexandra Elbakyan's gender.

There's an actual difference between the headline you chose (and the headline of the article below) and the headline of the OP.

It's the phrase "as a".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11125166

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#144

Post by aj_nikhil »

1. Doing something which is highly desirable & not many people can do.

2. Having great credentials.

3. Being connected in VC industry.

With above three elements its not tough to raise initial capital. Difficulty will arise in next round as that will depend on your ability to demonstrate success given the funding. This path is for people who are highly connected and influential. Not for common blokes.

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#145

Post by doggodaddo78 »

a_bonobo wrote: post #78

>It’s a VC’s job to keep the door open. Many were ‘blown away’, then passed before the second meeting. This is normal. I'm sometimes working with US-Americans and not being US-American myself, I feel like this is also a US-cultural thing? In important meetings with US stakeholders I struggle to read the room because everything is always 'awesome' and 'amazing', there's rarely upfront criticism. Honest feedback has to…

Yep.

I'm from the US grew up in the Valley but lived in the UK for a startup for a short while. It's both a byproduct of career hierarchal corporate obedience and social success façade (see also: modern campus culture of Ivy Leagues and Pac12s). It's absolutely awful for mental health or getting things done.

More practically, it's a problem when people try so hard to be liked that they throw away respect by being too "nice." As such, they're not your friends or anyones friend, they're toxically-positive, inherently dishonest, and cowardly "yes men." It's a dishonest, time-/energy-wasting, and an untrustworthy cultural- and communication-style. People like these are a liability because they won't go anywhere far except to the diplomatic corps parties, UN-sponsored social ventures, and sing Kum ba yah. (Wantreprenuers and dumb money dispensers.) You have to be radically honest with yourself and others before you can attain and grow anything substantial.

Besides, VC investment is only essential if it's a capital-intensive venture or velocity-constrained by lack of capital. Having more capital isn't useful in and of itself without a plan and a strategy to deploy it to something that's already established, like water on a seedling. This is why chasing VC is worthless: sales of viable product cures all, including bringing VC interest.

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#146

Post by doggodaddo78 »

irjustin wrote: post #95
a_bonobo wrote: post #78

>It’s a VC’s job to keep the door open. Many were ‘blown away’, then passed before the second meeting. This is normal. I'm sometimes working with US-Americans and not being US-American myself, I feel like this is also a US-cultural thing? In important meetings with US stakeholders I struggle to read the room because everything is always 'awesome' and 'amazing', there's rarely upfront criticism. Honest feedback has to…

It's a pretty common flow. Many people are "impressed" or "blown away" or "love the team" etc etc. The responses are all platitudes and I've learned to ignore things that are "positive feedback". Today, the only thing that says an investor is in when they sign and send the money. Up until money in the bank, it doesn't matter how nice or how tough a potential investor is. Unless you're the hottest startup, this is pro…

Blowing smoke up your ass.

That reminds me of that call with Triplebyte where they said I "had about the highest score ever" on their screening test. I knew immediately they were full of it and totally dishonest.

"Actions speak louder..." Don't buy any of it except as an act and going through the motions so they can pat themselves on the back.

Real feedback means adversarial criticism, weaknesses, and examination of the business. However, they can leave their "passenger's seat driving" suggestions at the door too, unless they're really useful.

If anyone is ever going down the VC route, they're going to be married to them. Who wants to be married to a liar who can't speak truth or honestly?

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#147

Post by dougSF70 »

topherpalmtree wrote: post #85
b20000 wrote: post #16

Congrats, also for being honest and mentioning you previously worked in VC and had ivy-league connections. Myself and my co-founder never had time to go network or sell to investors, building a product just took 200% of our time. Having a moonshot idea and big market didn't matter. We just didn't have the connections or the time to build them. Looking back that is all that mattered. They didn't care we had customers…

Yeah, much less a working product. Tech vc is sprinkling money around hoping to grow magic. If you have revenue it probably isn’t speculative magic revenue.

Exactly, if you making money it suggests there is a market , that means there must be competitors....even though every unicorn start up ends up with many competitors...and if there are competitors it's not venture fundable..

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#148

Post by monocasa »

a_bonobo wrote: post #78

>It’s a VC’s job to keep the door open. Many were ‘blown away’, then passed before the second meeting. This is normal. I'm sometimes working with US-Americans and not being US-American myself, I feel like this is also a US-cultural thing? In important meetings with US stakeholders I struggle to read the room because everything is always 'awesome' and 'amazing', there's rarely upfront criticism. Honest feedback has to…

It seems to be mainly a west coast thing. "Good vibes" always bordering on fake vibes.

East coast seems to be more willing to tell you that your idea sucks, you suck, and your grandma sucks too. Unfortunately they're also way less likely to give your company a decently sized investment and valuation, so there's that.

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#149

Post by verst »

tptacek wrote: post #134
verst wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a VC thing. There is a greater delta if you didn't grow up in this particular US culture. As a German (15+ years in the US) formerly in SF now in Seattle I see big discrepancies in what I perceive as genuine feedback from coworkers or the general public compared to what I'd expect back in Germany. Of course VCs go even farther to keep all doors open. That to me is more of the same I observe from most fo…

I don't agree, and think that the distinction between polite encouragement and the enthusiastic affirmations of VCs is important to understand if you're going to engage with startup fundraising. There is something specific and unintuitive going on in these meetings, and people from Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and Tulsa are routinely caught out by it.

I don't disagree with you, it's just that I find your comment to downplay the significant baseline cultural difference of which you may or may not be aware (I don't know what culture you grew up with). This is something to which OP had referred but your comment essentially had been dismissive of by attributing this entirely to differing behavior of VCs compared to baseline US culture.

A founder from a different cultural background seeking funding or advice from US VCs must understand the baseline US culture and then how to interpret VC behavior relative to that culture.

EDIT: To provide a specific example: What is considered polite encouragement to a Californian comes across as very strong / enthusiastic encouragement to a German. Polite is relative to culture. Initially people unfamiliar with the culture may take the words of the random Californian or the VC at face value - both appearing equally enthusiastic observed this way.

Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co

#150

Post by cosmodisk »

verst wrote: post #132
tptacek wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's famously a VC thing, and it causes problems for ordinary US people as well.

It's not just a VC thing. There is a greater delta if you didn't grow up in this particular US culture. As a German (15+ years in the US) formerly in SF now in Seattle I see big discrepancies in what I perceive as genuine feedback from coworkers or the general public compared to what I'd expect back in Germany. Of course VCs go even farther to keep all doors open. That to me is more of the same I observe from most fo…

Reminds my previous job as a PM, where I had to deal with many nationalities. Germans were always: Yes/No, this is good/this is crap instead of 'well, you know,it depends,and it could be improved, considering everything it's not too bad'.
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