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How to Raise Money

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Raise Money

#31

Post by larrys »

jfarmer wrote: post #25
larrys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-read what I said. I'm not talking about what PG or YC recommends with regards to investing. I'm talking about the general idea that if anyone else said something like this and asked for blanket trust: "you can't trust your intuition....rule number zero is: these rules exist for a reason" Well those other people of course can't be trusted like PG and what they say doesn't matter as much. So if a person with 30 year…

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. These aren't universal, unqualified rules and I don't understand why you're trying to generalize them beyon…

What I said was:

"This is interesting and contradicts a bit of "disrupt" meme:"

If I was trying to rebut his point I would have stated that I thought he was wrong "and here is why" which is not what I did, did I?

With medical and legal advice by the way, it's highly likely that you if you talk to 10 professionals, (as the saying goes) you might very well get 10 different opinions.

"I'd say the prior odds of pg contradicting himself "

I didn't say PG contradicted himself at all. I said what he was saying contradicts the "disrupt" meme (if you want to call it that).

"Rather than point out the apparent contradiction and go all j'accuse on the author"

How does what I said in any way rise to the level of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27accuse

Re: How to Raise Money

#32

Post by diminish »

ig1 wrote: post #15
pg wrote: post #2

Incidentally, this is the actual advice we give startups about fundraising at YC. This batch I finally wrote it all down, and the s2013 startups used it when raising money.

"I don't know of a single VC investment that began with an associate cold-emailing a startup." I can vouch from personal knowledge that this has happened a number of times at a number of different European VCs, and at least once with a major US VC in the last year. I'm guessing it's far less common for YC startups because YC startups have demo day which essentially initiates the process. They also have a strong netwo…

we need to combine individual experiences and create a curated tabular list of investors classified by different dimensions in pg's great article. such a list combined with this article would be the ultimate cheatsheet for fundraising.

Re: How to Raise Money

#33

Post by [deleted] »

kori wrote: post #17

Paul Graham on dating: s/investors/women/ && s/investor/woman/ (works the other way too) When you talk to women your m.o. should be breadth-first search, weighted by expected value. You should always talk to women in parallel rather than serially. You can't afford the time it takes to talk to women serially, plus if you only talk to one woman at a time, they don't have the pressure of other women to make them act. Bu…

[deleted]

Re: How to Raise Money

#35

Post by ecuzzillo »

lpolovets wrote: post #26

There's a lot of great advice in this post, and much of it rings true. Specifically, the following tidbits are true ~100% of the time in my limited experience: - "Investors will try to lure you into fundraising when you're not. It's great for them if they can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else." - "What investors would like to do, if they could, is wait. When a startup is only a few mont…

Seems to me like the bottom two are not really disagreements. For the second to last, if they gave you terms, you'd invest, right?

For the last, you presumably aren't deciding whether to meet with them based on the deck; it's just nice to be able to review it so your mind is prepared.

Re: How to Raise Money

#36

Post by drpancake »

kori wrote: post #17

Paul Graham on dating: s/investors/women/ && s/investor/woman/ (works the other way too) When you talk to women your m.o. should be breadth-first search, weighted by expected value. You should always talk to women in parallel rather than serially. You can't afford the time it takes to talk to women serially, plus if you only talk to one woman at a time, they don't have the pressure of other women to make them act. Bu…

Essentially, they lead you on. They seem like they're about to invest right up till the moment they say no. If they even say no. Some of the worse ones never actually do say no; they just stop replying to your emails.

Re: How to Raise Money

#37

Post by larrys »

kori wrote: post #17

Paul Graham on dating: s/investors/women/ && s/investor/woman/ (works the other way too) When you talk to women your m.o. should be breadth-first search, weighted by expected value. You should always talk to women in parallel rather than serially. You can't afford the time it takes to talk to women serially, plus if you only talk to one woman at a time, they don't have the pressure of other women to make them act. Bu…

I kinda agree with this and it's applicable to many situations obviously.

For example if you are a (male) salesman then:

s/women/customers

(Keeping in mind not to spend more time with an attractive female customer with the hopes of scoring some non-business payback).

Of course any relationship decision you make is not the same as choosing investors although there are similarities.

Re: How to Raise Money

#38

Post by stonemetal »

lpolovets wrote: post #26

There's a lot of great advice in this post, and much of it rings true. Specifically, the following tidbits are true ~100% of the time in my limited experience: - "Investors will try to lure you into fundraising when you're not. It's great for them if they can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else." - "What investors would like to do, if they could, is wait. When a startup is only a few mont…

"Sometimes an investor will ask you to send them your deck and/or executive summary before they decide whether to meet with you. I wouldn't do that. It's a sign they're not really interested." I can look at a deck before a meeting. I will sit down for 15-45 minutes before a meeting, ... more interesting questions and concerns during the meeting.

It sounds like you want a deck before a meeting, which isn't contradicted by PG. PG says don't give a deck before not having a meeting. In more straightforward logic don't give decks to window shoppers. If they can't spare time to meet with you then they aren't interested, don't bother giving them a deck. Nothing in that quote suggests withholding a deck after they decide to meet with you but before the meeting.

Re: How to Raise Money

#39

Post by agrona »

Forgive my ignorance, but what does it mean for a founder to be "formidable"?

e.g. in this context:

> The founder who handles fundraising should be the CEO, who should in turn be the most formidable of the founders.

Re: How to Raise Money

#40

Post by vasilipupkin »

lpolovets wrote: post #26

There's a lot of great advice in this post, and much of it rings true. Specifically, the following tidbits are true ~100% of the time in my limited experience: - "Investors will try to lure you into fundraising when you're not. It's great for them if they can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else." - "What investors would like to do, if they could, is wait. When a startup is only a few mont…

"Sometimes an investor will ask you to send them your deck and/or executive summary before they decide whether to meet with you. I wouldn't do that. It's a sign they're not really interested."

I am both surprised and relieved by this advice. I see some investors over optimize on deck creation and presentation skills. Personally, I have not seen any correlation between how fancy the deck is and subsequent success

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