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

The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

theprivateequiteer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 16 posts

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#2

Post by Hitchhiker »

All trickery eventually comes apart.

" It has been so growing on my mind lately. Sometimes I have felt it was like an eye looking at me. And I am always wanting to put it on and disappear, don't you know; or wondering if it is safe, and pulling it out to make sure. I tired locking it up, but I found I couldn't rest without it in my pocket. I don't know why. And I don't seem to be able to make up my mind." - Bilbo Baggins

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#3

Post by markokocic »

It's all maths and some basic rules. And you don't have to be an economist or investment banker to do the maths for yourself.

Any (technical) founder that can't do the maths, or any (business) founder that doesn't "have a feeling" about this things deserves to be victim of investors.

The main issue here is that founders are often victims of unfounded optimism and trust in their enterprise, so they think only about best-case scenario ("I don't care about ratched, I'll make those 2M$ next year for sure"), and are thus an easy prey.

All being said, the article is still valuable both as a remainder of what to look at, and as a good promotion of authors book on the same subject.

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#4

Post by danssig »

markokocic wrote: post #3

It's all maths and some basic rules. And you don't have to be an economist or investment banker to do the maths for yourself. Any (technical) founder that can't do the maths, or any (business) founder that doesn't "have a feeling" about this things deserves to be victim of investors. The main issue here is that founders are often victims of unfounded optimism and trust in their enterprise, so they think only about be…

>deserves to be victim of investors.

No, no one "deserves" to be taken advantage of. Where does this ridiculous "blame the victims" nonsense come from?

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#5

Post by markokocic »

danssig wrote: post #4
markokocic wrote: post #3

It's all maths and some basic rules. And you don't have to be an economist or investment banker to do the maths for yourself. Any (technical) founder that can't do the maths, or any (business) founder that doesn't "have a feeling" about this things deserves to be victim of investors. The main issue here is that founders are often victims of unfounded optimism and trust in their enterprise, so they think only about be…

>deserves to be victim of investors. No, no one "deserves" to be taken advantage of. Where does this ridiculous "blame the victims" nonsense come from?

Nobody is "blaming the victims". They are founders, CTOs, CEOs that are leading the business and should know at least basic rules of what they are doing. There is nothing illegal in investors trying to do their own business, and nobody is "taking advantage of" our poor startup CEO/owner/founder.

If you want successful business it is not enough to be "good at creating products" and completely ignorant on basic business issues.

If I rephrase this instead "If business is led by people that can't comprehend basic rules of economy or do simple maths, that company can't possibly bring anything of value either to their customers or other stakeholders, and thus deserves to fail" would you still disagree.

And it is good that unsuccessful business fails.

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#6

Post by biot » 

  > Firstly, I know what you’re thinking, this sounds outrageous,
  > it’s not at all realistic. Well, sorry to break it to you, but
  > this is what MOST of our deals look like. Yes, MOST.
Is this actually an investor who invests in deals? The domain is hidden behind a Florida privacy service and there's no name(s) attached to the book that's being peddled. Even the PayPal checkout shows only "TPE" as the seller.

  > The Authors have invested Millions at top Private Equity firms!
Okay, but who are they? What firms? The post appears to be just teasers for getting you to buy the PDF. Even the PDF only has recommendations from anonymous positions at anonymous companies. If they really are VCs they should give the PDF away for free and get their name out there as the honest VCs. However, that goes counter to their assertion that "MOST" of their own dealings use the very trickery that they claim to expose.

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#8

Post by itsnotvalid »

biot wrote: post #6

> Firstly, I know what you’re thinking, this sounds outrageous, > it’s not at all realistic. Well, sorry to break it to you, but > this is what MOST of our deals look like. Yes, MOST. Is this actually an investor who invests in deals? The domain is hidden behind a Florida privacy service and there's no name(s) attached to the book that's being peddled. Even the PayPal checkout shows only "TPE" as the seller. > The Au…

It goes by a name called Peter Cartier (from various sources) but who knows if that even represents a real person.

Please correct me if I am wrong, if this post is promoted by accounts that are frequently used or just dummies.

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#9

Post by Hitchhiker »

markokocic wrote: post #5
danssig wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>deserves to be victim of investors. No, no one "deserves" to be taken advantage of. Where does this ridiculous "blame the victims" nonsense come from?

Nobody is "blaming the victims". They are founders, CTOs, CEOs that are leading the business and should know at least basic rules of what they are doing. There is nothing illegal in investors trying to do their own business, and nobody is "taking advantage of" our poor startup CEO/owner/founder. If you want successful business it is not enough to be "good at creating products" and completely ignorant on basic busines…

>>And it is good that unsuccessful business fails.

I think they did not hear you ( or other similarly wise folk ) .. exceptions available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_big_to_fail

Re: The Tricks Investors Use Against Founders - Part 2

#10

Post by biot »

itsnotvalid wrote: post #8
biot wrote: post #6

> Firstly, I know what you’re thinking, this sounds outrageous, > it’s not at all realistic. Well, sorry to break it to you, but > this is what MOST of our deals look like. Yes, MOST. Is this actually an investor who invests in deals? The domain is hidden behind a Florida privacy service and there's no name(s) attached to the book that's being peddled. Even the PayPal checkout shows only "TPE" as the seller. > The Au…

It goes by a name called Peter Cartier (from various sources) but who knows if that even represents a real person. Please correct me if I am wrong, if this post is promoted by accounts that are frequently used or just dummies.

This story and the first one were both submitted by username "flmyngo" whose only activity was submitting those two stories.
Post reply on HN