Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

blog.42floors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 62 posts

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#41

Post by davemel37 »

pg wrote: post #3

I'm impressed with Jason's posts. He seems to be methodically working through all the misconceptions of inexperienced founders. This is an important and subtle one. Investors assume that if they're hearing about you first from you, you can't be any good. If you were good, they'd already have heard about you, because you'd have found a way to get introduced to them by someone they trust. Even if investors didn't start…

While this makes sense logically...logic has a funny way of being built on false premises and anecdotal evidence.

You wrote,"Even if investors didn't start out with this bias, they'd soon learn it from experience."

Considering the core value proposition, and biggest driver of YC's success is it's introductions it promises... I feel a need to question this second part of your statement purely from a potential bias perspective.

It may be true, but can just as likely be built on a false assumption from anecdotal evidence.

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#42

Post by 001sky »

encoderer wrote: post #33
michaelochurch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors assume that if they're hearing about you first from you, you can't be any good. If you were good, they'd already have heard about you, because you'd have found a way to get introduced to them by someone they trust. So you're admitting that they're social-proof whores who refuse to think for themselves, even about the subject matter of their own jobs? VCs should be mortally humiliated by the fact that the ga…

Turns out most men are social proof whores. They are much more likely to date somebody who has been introduced to them by a friend they trust. Oh, and women too. C'mon. Weak argument here man. Newsflash: We trust the people that... we trust.

Weak argument here man

You're explaing why people are basically racist and xenophobic. Congrats. Unfortunaely, this makes your posture politically untenable / incorrect and dangerous. It also paints VCs with guilt by association. Because, ya know what? they are certainly sexist and racist based upon the data. Unfortunately. Bad news for this argument is tha VC cash comes from Public Pension funds and other LPs which politically cannot support such institutionalized bias against protected classes. Of course, the loophole is that VCs are not employers. So they are legally entitled to be as rascist, mysoginistic, and otherwise discriminatory as they damn well please. But don't go around publicising it.

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#43

Post by encoderer »

001sky wrote: post #42
encoderer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out most men are social proof whores. They are much more likely to date somebody who has been introduced to them by a friend they trust. Oh, and women too. C'mon. Weak argument here man. Newsflash: We trust the people that... we trust.

Weak argument here man You're explaing why people are basically racist and xenophobic. Congrats. Unfortunaely, this makes your posture politically untenable / incorrect and dangerous. It also paints VCs with guilt by association. Because, ya know what? they are certainly sexist and racist based upon the data. Unfortunately. Bad news for this argument is tha VC cash comes from Public Pension funds and other LPs which…

Uhh.... Sure?

Suffice to say I find your comments so absurd that they don't even merit a rebuttal. Consider yours the last word, congrats.

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#44

Post by 001sky »

encoderer wrote: post #43
001sky wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weak argument here man You're explaing why people are basically racist and xenophobic. Congrats. Unfortunaely, this makes your posture politically untenable / incorrect and dangerous. It also paints VCs with guilt by association. Because, ya know what? they are certainly sexist and racist based upon the data. Unfortunately. Bad news for this argument is tha VC cash comes from Public Pension funds and other LPs which…

Uhh.... Sure? Suffice to say I find your comments so absurd that they don't even merit a rebuttal. Consider yours the last word, congrats.

Its no more absurd then the appeal to authority from dating advice. Because if you look at the quantitative analytics on dating, they are pretty strong. They show rampant/pervasive casual racism and obvious self-segregation. The value of trust should not be underestimated, but if you're not going to go through the bother of thinking through the implications you need to hedge any sweeping proclamations.

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#45

Post by dm8 »

lquist wrote: post #9

another top tier VC once told me that out of the thousands of business pitches he receives in his office every year, his firm has never funded one that came in completely cold. Referring to Chris Sacca ( http://lowercasecapital.com/prospecting/ ) perhaps?

Majority of VCs/investors (particularly in the bay area) don't give significant importance to cold approach. Lot of savvy founders are aware of this.

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#46

Post by scribu »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #37
squidfood wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? This is no different than any filtering in any domain. Who to hire? What movie to go see? You want someone who personally knows you, whose opinion you trust, to vouch for someone rather than going on a cold guess.

Now this is what I don't get, because usually, that doesn't work. At all. I know from experience that imdb score is a much better predictor of how good a movie will be than a recommendation of a friend, who might have a completely different taste than me. Same with electronics - I know I can make a much more informed decision by doing my own research than most - if not all - people I know, but maybe I just don't know…

Ok, so what's the equivalent of an IMDB score that VCs could use to judge a startup pitch?

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#47

Post by littlecritter »

I was at an event with VC Peter Thiel (founders fund) over the weekend. Someone asked him to contribute to a charitable event during the Q&A. He made the point clear: If you want me to do something for you, come through a trusted friend. I only invest personally if you've been recommended by a trusted friend.

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#48

Post by graycat »

Investors can want whatever the heck they want, but wanting is not getting.

I know plenty of people high up in US business and academic research, but those people and the VCs don't know each other.

VCs and I don't know the same people.

Bluntly, the VCs are a bit below my 'circle' of business acquaintances.

In particular, the fraction of VCs I would hire into my company is tiny, so small to be nearly invisible. Why? Because their technical qualifications in information technology, etc. in a word suck.

I mean, would you hire a VC? For what, BizDev? What if a VC gave you advice on how to invest your IRA?

How many VCs can code, productively with today's technology? How about be a system administrator for a high end server farm or network?

"The single most important decision you will ever make is with whom to do business."

Extra credit for the source.

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#49

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #3

I'm impressed with Jason's posts. He seems to be methodically working through all the misconceptions of inexperienced founders. This is an important and subtle one. Investors assume that if they're hearing about you first from you, you can't be any good. If you were good, they'd already have heard about you, because you'd have found a way to get introduced to them by someone they trust. Even if investors didn't start…

[deleted]

Re: Investors don’t want to meet you. They wanted to be introduced to you

#50

Post by graycat »

> This is an important and subtle one. Investors assume that if they're hearing about you first from you, you can't be any good. If you were good, they'd already have heard about you, because you'd have found a way to get introduced to them by someone they trust.

Yes, the investors do "assume", but, for information technology investing, their ROI for the past 10 years sucks (details in a Fred Wilson blog).

VCs don't know the right people to know a significant fraction of people who are really "good". A really "good" startup entrepreneur likely won't know anyone a VC will "trust".

If a VC can't evaluate my work from what I write, then they won't be able to be effective on my Board; I won't be able to hope to be successful with them on my Board; and I won't be able to have them on my Board or have them invest.

I want to be successful in business, but on average VCs are not very successful. Khosla had some recent, sharp remarks on VCs.

Post reply on HN