Hacker News Reader

Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

This write-up is wrong and incorrect.

At the seed stage, VC's actually do not make decisions this way.

I am going to give you a simple example: if a VC were presented with an opportunity and they knew for a fact that this was proprietary dealflow and if they did not invest, the company certainly would die, i.e. had precisely zero viability but for their (and only their) investment, are there conditions under which they would invest?

The actual demonstrable answer at the seed stage is "no."

This proves that the write-up is incorrect. Not how VC's make decisions.

View on HN

Can I drop you a mail, I would be interested to explore where its incorrect.

Also please remember that the survey simplifies the reality by putting everything in the same model of deal selection.

From a practical standpoint I have some VCs friends that use a model similar to this and others dont.

Your VC friends only claim to use a similar model as this and it is not true. It is also falsifiable empirically - you could verify it experimentally if you really wanted.

You can email me at the email in my profile if you wanted. (I am not affiliated with YC and I'm not a VC, though.)

However a good starting point for how investors actually make decisions is here: http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong... under the "investors" section.

It is a much better summary of how they actually make decisions (as opposed to what they report). I won't try to summarize it, just read those 11 paragraphs - but I will quote "If you remember one piece of advice about investors, it's that you've got to create some type of competitive situation."

This is entirely absent from the article (which is wrong.) "Table 2: Important Factors for Investment Selection" is entirely, laughably wrong.

It is simply not the way VC's actually make their investment decisions. At all. (Certainly at the seed stage.) Completely wrong. Sorry.

This sounds a little too cynical, and possibly autobiographical.

I have counterexamples. So, who's right?

if you have counterexamples then you are right and I am wrong.

I shot you an email asking for details of your counterexamples and will write in a reply if in my opinion they falsify my claim. (Or you can include them here if they're public.)

I'm open to the idea that I was wrong.

As of 8 hours later I did not receive your mail. If the email in your profile is not correct you can mail me at mine.

I am scientific and made a strong claim above: if you have a plurality of counterexamples I would like to update my comment stating I was wrong.

So far I have just a statement from you that you know of counterexamples. I do not.

Thank you.

Update: I received an example via email that included approximately 40 investors passing and not being interested, until the seed round began to be put together at which point it snowballed. I would say this strengthens my conviction that the levers listed in the article are not how VC's make their decisions: because those listed levers did not change to cause the change in investor decision.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com