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VCs aren’t your friends

openvc.app

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Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#261

Post by iamleppert »

What is more striking is that this VC felt it necessary to take to LinkedIn to "educate" others on his reasoning. For what purpose? So that people will remove dates from their slide decks now? Because that is the likely outcome.

The only investors who have enough time for such things generally aren't the ones closing the best deals. What does it say about him that he is desperate enough for a deal that he has to open cold emails and then take to LinkedIn to criticize a date that is two months old? If you notice he didn't say anything about the content of the actual information being outdated. Just the date.

His biggest gift to this company was not investing in them.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#262

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

openrisk wrote: post #191

In transactional financial markets "friends" is not the right word, but there is something to be said about more or less effective alignment of interests and that is purely a matter of design. There is more than enough money sloshing around, it all boils down to designing contracts and suitable information exchanges between parties. So anybody thinking that the current system is sub-obtimal can try their hand at disr…

I do not know who Jason lemkins is but he seems like a random small fry saying bullshit to gain some clout.

I have worked with bigger vc firms such as matrix partners and they genuinely care about you and want your startup to succeed if they are interested.

Trick is to make something which is genuinely cool and matches with the thesis and talk to vcs who are respectable.

Yc is a great help in this regard. They help you understand which vcs are respectable and which vcs you should treat like mushrooms: feed them shit and keep them in the dark.

Lemkins seems like a mushroom.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#263

Post by nextworddev »

iamleppert wrote: post #261

What is more striking is that this VC felt it necessary to take to LinkedIn to "educate" others on his reasoning. For what purpose? So that people will remove dates from their slide decks now? Because that is the likely outcome. The only investors who have enough time for such things generally aren't the ones closing the best deals. What does it say about him that he is desperate enough for a deal that he has to open…

He felt "triggered" that he wasn't the first call, which comes off as petty and entitled, which most VCs are.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#264

Post by cageface »

saberience wrote: post #206
cageface wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VC wouldn't exist if founders didn't want and need capital and have no other way of getting it. This is too reductive. A lot of founders have to raise because they're competing with other companies with VC funding, often dumping their product on the market at a loss to starve out bootstrapped competitors and lock in customers.

Yeah but imagine trying to bootstrap a product which relies on network effects with no investment and where profitability is potentially years out. Social Networks are a good example here, or something like Uber. There are many valuable and amazing businesses where self-funding/bootstrapping doesn't work. Or businesses which start out as one thing, get VC money and experiment, try to find product/market fit over a ye…

Sure I think VC has value in some cases. I think the zero-interest period distorted their role and pushed them into areas that would have better been served by bootstrapped and profitable small companies. I'm hopeful that with interest rates back in a more reasonable range we'll get a better equilibrium.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#265

Post by nextworddev »

max_ wrote: post #253
dpflan wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind expanding upon this, detailing the exploitation: "It was only after Steve Jobs exploited their preferential attachment & tendency of VC to succumb to herding effects that he was given investment."

There is a very good documentary called Something Ventured[1]. It's really good. I think everyone into Startups must watch this. It's not second hand narration but the real VCs them selves telling the stories so I find it very reliable. So in the documentary there is a section about VCs meeting Steve Jobs & Wozniak for the first time. They passed on the investment saying that they were "not impressive". One of the VC…

The longer you work in tech industry, you will viscerally "feel" just how rare Steve Jobs was as a talent.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#266

Post by toss1 »

As the VC pointed out, the key here is the two-months-old date.

But not exactly for the reason he stated. It is not that he isn't the first, so he's got thin skin or wants only founders who thought he was the best/first VC to approach (and smart founders might not take their first shot with their most favored VC as they'd want to hone their pitch with less-critical candidate VCs).

The reasoning here is more likely that "other smart money has looked at this deal and passed", so he can leverage the efforts of these other unseen VCs who passed. This could be written off as lazy/cowardly 'herd mentality', but it is a real signal.

It's also true that by definition, if there's a unique opportunity here, he's also missing it by grouping himself with the other VCs. But that is a negative-space signal, and the question is whether it's more likely determinative than the signal that "yeah, they also passed".

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#267

Post by alephnerd »

humansareok1 wrote: post #252
alephnerd wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VC Analyst Internships are very well paid because they are competing with IB Analyst and FAANG SWE/PM internship offers. Imo the easiest way to get a VC Analyst internship is to do EECS@Cal/MIT or CS@Stanford with a Business (or in Cal+Stanford's case Econ or MS&E) minor, do a SWE internship in Frosh summer, and be prominent in your university's entrepreneurship or hackathon scene. That said, my question would be WHY…

The number of Stanford Juniors with 1 summer internship at a VC posting 'deep' Startup insights or advice is shocking. Like what do these kids with literally no experience running or starting anything know about companies? It's mind boggling.

VC Internships are intense, and not every Stanford student can land one. While some advice might be a bit meh, a lot of it is information that has value.

And, no offense, but there is a massive difference in calibre between a Stanford/Cal/MIT/T10 CS program (they tend to have 2-4% acceptance rates to either the college or the CS department) and other programs. This doesn't mean that there aren't high calibre candidates at non-T10 programs (I've known plenty of successful SJSU, CUNY, UMinn, etc founders, EMs, SWEs, PMs, and yes even a couple angels and VCs), but it seems that you have a chip on your back.

> Like what do these kids with literally no experience running or starting anything know about companies

A lot HAVE tried starting something or are in the process of starting a company. Most VC Analysts are hired explicitly so when those Analysts hit the 2 year mark, they can start their own startup.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#268

Post by dpflan »

max_ wrote: post #253
dpflan wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind expanding upon this, detailing the exploitation: "It was only after Steve Jobs exploited their preferential attachment & tendency of VC to succumb to herding effects that he was given investment."

There is a very good documentary called Something Ventured[1]. It's really good. I think everyone into Startups must watch this. It's not second hand narration but the real VCs them selves telling the stories so I find it very reliable. So in the documentary there is a section about VCs meeting Steve Jobs & Wozniak for the first time. They passed on the investment saying that they were "not impressive". One of the VC…

FOMO is the number 1 VC trait to exploit.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#269

Post by conductr »

keiferski wrote: post #21

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…

When you become a part of their portfolio, you are becoming part of the institution. They need to trust that you’re not going to rock their boat. Taking investment means taking on a grown up attitude towards the operations of your company In many ways. So I think this is kind of intended.

Re: VCs aren’t your friends

#270

Post by azemetre »

humansareok1 wrote: post #252
alephnerd wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VC Analyst Internships are very well paid because they are competing with IB Analyst and FAANG SWE/PM internship offers. Imo the easiest way to get a VC Analyst internship is to do EECS@Cal/MIT or CS@Stanford with a Business (or in Cal+Stanford's case Econ or MS&E) minor, do a SWE internship in Frosh summer, and be prominent in your university's entrepreneurship or hackathon scene. That said, my question would be WHY…

The number of Stanford Juniors with 1 summer internship at a VC posting 'deep' Startup insights or advice is shocking. Like what do these kids with literally no experience running or starting anything know about companies? It's mind boggling.

Wait until you find out the work experience of people consultancies send out to clients. It's often one experienced person with a bunch of grunts pumping out "work."

In a previous life I worked for a health insurance company that paid a million dollars to the Boston Consultancy Group on if we should use agile or not for development. The best part was seeing the half dozen or so people in our offices working so diligently to argue for something we were already doing, even better when speaking to these consultants they had zero experience programming or developing software.

I often wonder what it takes to win these contracts over McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte; because it sure feels like it's not aptitude that's the defining quality but more quasi-legal corruption.

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