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VCs aren’t your friends

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51–60 of 383 posts

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#51
> VCs aren't your teachers nor your managers. They don't have an obligation to provide feedback or even to reply to your emails. They won't give you a second chance. They won't coach you so you can do better next time.

Seems like the typical teacher or manager to me.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#52
post #43

For folks that are working on a product right now, given the incentive structures behind venture capital, are there genuine reasons to pursue that kind of money? Let me rephrase: How many folks out there are searching for for some kind of niche business with enough to cover expenses and had some profit in a small scale? I had a short experience with the music industry and the whole enterprise + VC sounds the same dyn…

If you have a business that can get off the ground without funding, great. That just isn't reality for most.

There is maybe some people who raise money "because it is cool", but I would think it is in the minority. If you have a business that is profitable, you are happy with the growth, etc, there is little sense in going to the investors begging for money. The couple bootstrapped businesses I have seen didn't have much interest in raisin.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#53
post #29
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're brilliant and idiosyncratic and delivering something truly compelling, then vcs are more than happy to look past these things. God knows how many very eccentric founders have received funding

It is impossible for something in very early stages, that needs money to be "truly compelling". For VCs a compelling product means great traction but to get great traction you need initial funding so it's always a catch 22.

Traction doesn't always mean paying users.

Even just having people on a waitlist can be all you need.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#54

Do VCs need regulation? Should we ensure equity for diverse founders?

Yeah, why just VC's, force everyone to invest. There is a lot of rich ppl in the world who don't invest to startups at all. That is wrong. We should have a law that requires at least certain % of net worth to be invested in startups.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t read this as “10% will become 100B businesses”, I read this as “10% are hot”—probably the author meant “like a team out of OAI” but maybe they meant “like recent rounds of OAI have been”. In any case this post read as sophisticated, reasonable, and helpful, to me.

It's orders of magnitude off. The guy is just LARPing poorly, even lacking common sense. One single OpenAI-tier deal every two years, consistently, would put you into Legendary VC territory.

I think he meant that they seem as exciting as OpenAI to investors. Not that all of them (or any) succeed.

You can bet on all 10% potential OpenAIs of the future and still loose all your bets.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#56
post #30

The way VCs filter out potential investments seems fairly similar to the way Ivy League schools filter out potential students. (Probably because they are comprised of the same people.) It is not really about technical brilliance, or innovation, or anything that is written on their website as a core value. It's more about whether you're smart enough and can follow instructions and fit into the overarching institutiona…

I'd say Jobs would have blown them away. He was a businessman and an obsessive who knew when to focus on the design versus the product versus the money. If investors in his era wanted a perfect pitch deck, his pitch deck would have been perfect. Tesla might have been more likely to focus on having the tech working at the expense of everything else.

Nah. I know a VC that passed on Apple because Steve was 20 min late to their meeting.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#57
post #43

For folks that are working on a product right now, given the incentive structures behind venture capital, are there genuine reasons to pursue that kind of money? Let me rephrase: How many folks out there are searching for for some kind of niche business with enough to cover expenses and had some profit in a small scale? I had a short experience with the music industry and the whole enterprise + VC sounds the same dyn…

I've never heard of a musical group or artist who can make a sustainable living on just a local scene (although maybe that's rather the point, since they stayed local to wherever they are). Even for huge artists, from what I've heard merch is where the money is, not ticket or record sales (or today, streaming, which is _ludicrously_ tilted against the artist actually making any money). Admittedly I last looked into this around twenty years ago and my sample is tilted more towards the folk singer-songwriter type rather than, say, DJs.

That's not to diss local artists, though. Some are incredibly talented, and I loved the scene I was in it. Just, if we're talking about investing, making music looked like 9 times out of 10 a money sink you do for the love of it, not an investment opportunity.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#58
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Jobs would have blown them away. He was a businessman and an obsessive who knew when to focus on the design versus the product versus the money. If investors in his era wanted a perfect pitch deck, his pitch deck would have been perfect. Tesla might have been more likely to focus on having the tech working at the expense of everything else.

Jobs definitely didn't present himself that way, at the beginning at least: To build the company, Jobs adroitly tapped the network of support services that has made Silicon Valley such a fertile place for fledgling businesses. Says he: “We didn’t know what the hell we were doing, but we were very careful observers and learned quickly.” Jobs pestered Regis McKenna, the area’s premier public relations specialist, to ta…

I'd be curious what woz saw between garage days and apple incorporation in terms of Jobs' views about marketing/behavior/appearances.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#59
I don't know if this person realizes that he basically asks people to lie in the future and make a custom deck with custom dates and custom jokes to each angel.

It's just a part of a bigger short sighted system tho, hate the game not the player

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#60

The way VCs filter out potential investments seems fairly similar to the way Ivy League schools filter out potential students. (Probably because they are comprised of the same people.) It is not really about technical brilliance, or innovation, or anything that is written on their website as a core value. It's more about whether you're smart enough and can follow instructions and fit into the overarching institutiona…

Yeah pretty much So much that playing videogames during a VC meeting can swing them the "right way" if you fit the structure enough

You can say a lot of shit about this person. But this is so inspiring. Like, this is a good example for young people out there. You don't have to change your ways for boomers even though they have a lot of money you need.

The lesson I got here is just be you. Let others change for you.

And do not fuck with the IRS in any circumstances.

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