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Comment by sonink | Hacker News Reader

The real value in this post is maybe how the VC thinks about risk rather than a how a founder should. The need for structure in something as ephemeral as startup risk definitely stands out.

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I think that value is pretty big actually, it's something founders need to be deeply aware of. I wrote about one instance where this comes up a lot here - why raising money pre-launch is often easier than post-launch https://medium.com/@tommyrva/why-is-raising-your-seed-round-...

Great post. I think part of de-risking is that sometimes you find out your assumptions don't hold. E.g. you thought there was a $5b opportunity, but after launching you can quickly see that you were wrong. In that respect, it's much better to fundraise before you launch because you wouldn't be able to raise post-launch, but then you still have to figure out what to do after you have money but find out your idea isn't great.

100% true! I'll admit, I intentionally avoided addressing that in the post, I wanted to focus on the tactics rather than the larger question the efficacy of these tactics raise.

There's a counter-argument even I would make which is: if it's true that it's easier to raise pre-launch for these reasons, does that mean you should? Not sure.

Having seen a lot of founders who are just poker players, or full of hot air, this article provides a good objective way to unemotionally evaluate a startup.

This is important, because it's really easy to get excited about something that just isn't going to go anywhere because the leader is charismatic.

Agreed, however, if you're a founder who plans to raise money, they're helpful barometers to look at.

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