I wonder how many here got the second paragraph of the OP.
Second sentence of second paragraph, actually.
“Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
51–60 of 217 posts
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#52>“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
> If you already had traction, you wouldn't need to kiss the ring
They’re telling you you’re pitching at the wrong stage. Growth and early stage doesn’t invest before traction; that’s the purview of angels and possibly seed investors.
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#53Maybe 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…
Because the SV VC business model isn't to build a traditional profitable business that beats the competition by providing a superior product/service for a competitive price. It is to dominate the competition by subsidizing the real cost to consumers, until you have taken over the market and can raise the price and lower the quality of the product/service.
Edit: Or the business model is to be acquired by a FAANG who fears they need to get into your area and care more about optics to their bosses/shareholders than how financially sustainable your startup is.
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#54Maybe 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…
The goal of most Silicon Valley founders isn't profit, but growth. Quickly increase users, quickly increase revenue, quickly increase headcount. Quickly become a large company which can be sold for billions. Or, never reach sustainability and eventually go bankrupt - this outcome is actually still good for the founders since they probably walk away with millions in their pockets (from paying themselves seven-figure s…
It’s growth… until the “plateau” phase of the Schumpeter economic cycle (~60 years), where entrenched actors raise prices and customers lose choice.
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#55Rubrik for early stage: 1. No product: -> went to stanford or harvard -> funded (no questions asked) -> held director level at faang -> funded -> everyone else -> probably not funded 2. Have product: -> not prestigious -> need real ARR with good growth -> prestigious -> need a product -> everyone else -> not funded
-> went to stanford or harvard -> funded (no questions asked)
-> white male went to stanford or harvard -> funded (no questions asked)
White male Harvard grads I know routinely got funded very quickly, though. They often had time to get actual work done. Even still, most of them didn't succeed in the end.
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#56For our two-sided marketplace startup, this meant Android and iOS apps for customers, and another pair of apps for mechanics. 6 months later, we released our fully-fledged MVP to a deafening silence from customers, mechanics, and investors.
It's probably really hard to get traction when it's not obvious who your customers are, and this description reveals that. Your customers are the entities that are paying you. Is this supposed to be an app for mechanics to find work? Is it supposed to be an app for people with car problems to find someone to fix it? Those looking to get their vehicle serviced aren't going to want to pay the finders feed on top of the cost charged by the mechanic, which means those people are not your customers. What are the cases where someone would pay for your app? Are mechanics having trouble finding work? Are the mechanics the customers of Fixr? Do people with car trouble have it often enough that they'd pay for such a service vs whatever else they'd do?
"Talk to us again when you have traction" indeed. Or "Talk to us again when you know how to recognize traction."
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#57Earlier 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.
They do - they just have to have had larger successes. "Founding X" doesn't count for shit. Being part of a team that built a hugely successful product teaches you a lot - it teaches you about the counterintuitive dynamics of superlinear growth. That is a very important mindset to bring to the table if you want to create a successful VC-funded startup.
I had to look up "superlinear growth" because I've never seen that term used under posts with VC related topics. If you're as confused as me, Paul Graham wrote a blog post about this last October (figures):
http://www.paulgraham.com/superlinear.html
tl:dr: Just make a product that's so cool it'll go viral in it's respective market.
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#58Rubrik for early stage: 1. No product: -> went to stanford or harvard -> funded (no questions asked) -> held director level at faang -> funded -> everyone else -> probably not funded 2. Have product: -> not prestigious -> need real ARR with good growth -> prestigious -> need a product -> everyone else -> not funded
-> went to stanford or harvard -> funded (no questions asked) I'd edit this to -> white male went to stanford or harvard -> funded (no questions asked) Source: I know lots of female and non-white Harvard grads who didn't get funded. I'm a non-white MIT grad and also found funding very, very difficult even when we had a product. We almost continuously had to spend >1/2 of our working hours just trying to get funding.…
Hardware is a different category and doesnt really fit the traditional VC model. Also, indians/east asians are the majority in tech, not the minority. Plenty of examples of open discrimination in big tech from those groups
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
“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.
Is there any real benefit to taking ~$160k and 1% as a “founding” engineer? We’re not even close to series C yet but it’s starting to feel like I need to be more aggressive about compensation or a role change.
If you don’t become a +$100mm company (and have the ability to cash out at that position) it seems to be a pretty rough deal honestly.
Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs
#60Oh, I’ve heard many No’s. So many No’s that I will never, ever try to work with VC’s ever again. Fuck them. There’s a very high probability that you won’t need them either. In my case, I just kept going. If you have a good product then you will succeed. With VCs or not!
I kinda feel for the people who are desparate to be the big cheese rather than have their own thing that's sustainable
wonder how they would feel squashing your business in the same industry