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How does one get the kind of connections to even raise a seed round? I'm in the Midwest, and unless I'm doing AgTech or something B2B no one wants to talk to me. I have a B2C SaaS product that could take off like a rocketship if I had more resources to dedicate to it.
Be or have a co-founder with: - an affiliation with an ivy league school - a prior notable technology or business contribution, such as authoring a protocol (or more recently an open source project) - some unusual circumstance such as family relationships that causes VC partners to care more about them than a random person - be obviously independently wealthy already - have been a founder or high level employee invol…
the advice nobody wants to hear but is actually true. ofc you also need to be highly competent yourself, but that is table stakes
In my limited observation, a good number of small startups were still getting their Series B in early 2010, when most folks were still busy laying off or freezing hires. Those did have either a good university brand backing, a serial entrepreneur or both.
How does one get the kind of connections to even raise a seed round? I'm in the Midwest, and unless I'm doing AgTech or something B2B no one wants to talk to me. I have a B2C SaaS product that could take off like a rocketship if I had more resources to dedicate to it.
Wrt/ post-raise - be smart about how you spend and leverage the fact that you probably aren't starting off with, hopefully, high burn. Lot's of companies might be operating under an assumption that there is quick cash around the corner... it's not as "quick" anymore I suspect.
How does one get the kind of connections to even raise a seed round? I'm in the Midwest, and unless I'm doing AgTech or something B2B no one wants to talk to me. I have a B2C SaaS product that could take off like a rocketship if I had more resources to dedicate to it.
What’s the product?
Right now it's at this awkward stage where it doesn't make enough for it to be my full time job and I don't have the skills/budget to market it effectively. It keeps growing month over month via organic search traffic though, so I must be doing something right.
I do early stage (first check) investments in companies using Ruby on Rails. We primarily look for founders with a long term view who will be fun to work with (not nerds). Feel free to reach out, details in profile.
We’re looking to raise investment at the moment, and this kind of ethos really resonates with me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the advice nobody wants to hear but is actually true. ofc you also need to be highly competent yourself, but that is table stakes
Being competent is not table stakes, how can they tell who is competent?
However, it does not necessarily mean the person has competence to be a good founder.
https://apply.ycombinator.com/
Less obvious, so worth adding: if you don't get accepted, keep applying for future batches. Repeat applications are more likely to get funded. The main thing is to demonstrate progress since the last time you applied.
Edit: also, YC is very invested in not overlooking applications from compelling founders who don't have any elite or industry connections. It's one place where you can prove yourself based on how good you are, not who you know. Not that YC is perfect in that respect, but it's something people here really care about and have a lot of practice with.
Edit 2: these recent comments from pg are also relevant: