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“Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

jacobbartlett.substack.com

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Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#31

Post by maccard »

hinkley wrote: post #15
lisper wrote: post #3

It's not so much that "yes" means "no" but that VC's never actually say no, and it's easy to understand why. Whether or not they actually fund you, they always want you to think that they are going to fund you because that way they hedge their bets in two ways. First, if they learn new information (like if you suddenly start to get traction) they can change their minds without losing face. Second, and more importantl…

If they run down your clock because you think a check is coming, their other company can hire your former employees.

I'm not going to say this has never happened, but I think it's a little naive to think that this is the common path. In my experience, the first option OP presented (hedging bets and wanting to save face) are incredibly common.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#32

Post by caesil »

>“Talk to us again when you have traction.”

>In our first-time founder naïveté, we took this to heart. Our startup lived or died on whether we had traction.

Ummm... this seems pretty genuine, as opposed to a polite no? If you don't have something compelling to differentiate you from the cacophony of other founders who want preproduct dollars, then of course you need to demonstrate the viability of the product.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#34

Post by jakey_bakey »

daft_pink wrote: post #30

Maybe it's my business major background and my skepticism of all these tech companies that have no reasonable business model to make $'s, but unless there is an obvious need for investment like buying a large amount of real estate or machinery, why would you need VC money to build an app after you've already spent several months doing it? It should run on it's own and not need investor money. You shouldn't be focused…

Appreciate it :)

But yes, after learning a lot from my various startup scars, I don't believe I'll be seeking VC dollars for an app unless:

- I am creaking under success with an impossible cloud bill - I am a late-onset cofounder of an already successful co that needs and app

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#35

Post by jakey_bakey »

caesil wrote: post #32

>“Talk to us again when you have traction.” >In our first-time founder naïveté, we took this to heart. Our startup lived or died on whether we had traction. Ummm... this seems pretty genuine, as opposed to a polite no? If you don't have something compelling to differentiate you from the cacophony of other founders who want preproduct dollars, then of course you need to demonstrate the viability of the product.

Oh, it's absolutely genuine, but there is a contradiction in a VC (inherently risky endavour) requiring you to de-risk their risky investment

If you already had traction, you wouldn't need to kiss the ring

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#36

Post by striking »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #5

"Everyone wants investment from venture capitalists". I have a bootstrapped side project, Tunnelmole, turning a small profit and growing at a slow and steady rate on its own. I'm the engineer so I only really pay hosting costs, which are covered by the revenue, although in the early days I had to cover this. While venture capital is an option, if it continues to grow, it's entirely possible the venture capitalists ma…

The very end of the article I think addresses this in a plain and direct way:

> 9. VC funding is cool and all, but essentially, it is a waste of time if you haven’t validated your market: bootstrapping to get paying customers quickly is the most effective tactic available.

> 10. In all honesty, you don’t want to take external funding unless you have intensely strong user growth; and being unable to hire becomes your bottleneck.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#37

Post by jakey_bakey »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #25
jakey_bakey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope you read the second sentence and understood I was trying to be a little satirical here

I did, I enjoyed reading that, from ire to wry smile, in a sentence.

I'm very glad my structure worked as intended :)

Can you f*cking believe that the publication on Medium I originally posted this to edited that sentence out!?

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#38

Post by kybernetikos »

Sytten wrote: post #6

"Everyone wants investment from venture capitalists." Am I the only one not living in this bubble. I cofounded a boostrap business. Having cash to hire and not have to work two jobs would sure be nice, but if I am raising it would not be to be on Forbes list, it would be to build an actual business. The vanity of those people sometimes.

I listened to an interview with Ivan Kuckir who created Photopea with an old laptop and a cheap webhost. It runs in the users browsers, so his costs are extremely low. The interviewer asked him about taking VC money, but he didn't seem keen. It's a runaway financial success as it is, and there isn't really anything that taking a bunch of money would allow him to do that he can't already do.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#39

Post by [deleted] »

daft_pink wrote: post #30

Maybe it's my business major background and my skepticism of all these tech companies that have no reasonable business model to make $'s, but unless there is an obvious need for investment like buying a large amount of real estate or machinery, why would you need VC money to build an app after you've already spent several months doing it? It should run on it's own and not need investor money. You shouldn't be focused…

[deleted]

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#40

Post by jakey_bakey »

jonathankoren wrote: post #14
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah i was more so thinking of first time founders. Second time founder is a different thing, though I dont think early employees ("founding engineers") get much respect.

“Founding ____” is not “founder”. It’s just a fancy way of saying “employee”. This is always been the case.

Do they still call themselves founding engineer at Series C? Just seems like a cute way to convince graduates it's worth being paid 1/4 what Google/Meta could cough up.
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