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Comment by madaxe_again | Hacker News Reader

You spend half your career being told that you are too young by prospective clients and investors (I was rather astounded when we were turned down on this ground at first, rather than anything to do with the product or service, but eventually grew to accept it), and then the next half being told you are too old by the same.

Ah, to be forever 34 and eight months.

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Whatever reason an investor gives for turning your investment down, it's actually code for "I don't think you can pull this off."

In our case it was definitely age - the number of times I’d take an older employee along to a meeting and wryly smile as they’d assume he was me was substantial. Then I grew a beard and lost a load of weight, and things changed.

I hate to say it, but it’s rarely what you do or what you say - it’s how you do it and how you look when you say it.

These days I look like a mature, sensible businessperson, but I’m still the same twelve year old jackass I always was.

Or "you look like the guy that ran off with my wife".

Like interview feedback, it's generally useless advice because people make emotional decisions rather than rational.

Ha true! Regardless of the bullshit the VCs feed about traction, team and such nonsense everything boils down to how charming you are. Worked with plenty of startups that essentially sold perpetual motion machine but the founders could convince you to buy ice in Antarctica

While I tend to agree (My experience has been that the desire to make money is stronger than the desire to be ageist)...it's still an area that is highly subjective.

I would think bias is more likely to get eliminated the further up the funding ladder you go (i.e. sure this person might not look like me, but the numbers prove he knows what he/she knows what their doing).

However at the angel stage, there's so much room for subjectivity that I can't believe bias doesn't play a role.

I suspect a lot of older entrepreneurs are turned down for their age as well, but due to legal restrictions, this isn't stated outright the way it may be for a younger person.

This is what I absolutely hate about VCs. The reasons are garbage and they are actually harming by trying to be polite. There is no such thing as too young or old for startups. Why do they even care if they think your startup is going to make it?

I got turned down by one VC because "they don't invest in India". My startup is registered in Delaware, I pitched him in US and I am not even Indian citizen

What was/is the startup? Reading between the snark lines it sounds like the VC thought you'd struggle to achieve your goals without resorting to cheap outsourcing

my startup is https://www.aihello.com

My aim is to replace human labour with machine learning in supply chain logistics so it would be ironic if he thought like that

but was your target market Indians?

No it wasn't. Target market was North America. We are still focused on NA

well in that case I am assuming he wanted to say no but not to hurt your feeling he accidentally said "they don't invest in India" since you look Indian (I am assuming that based on your name)

Or he could just be a jerk.

And that's the point I am making. VC's come up with reasons to say no and this one was the vaguest I heard.

I do look Indian and talk Indian ;)

This might not be the case going forward for cloud, SaaS models with zero touch sales. Most software would move to this category sooner than we think as there is high vendor motive. It is hindered only by regulatory or compliance needs in certain industries/countries

Those regulatory needs are more often than not the secret sauce and speciality of those vendors. Look at the payments space - now that every municipality is going to tax online sales it pushes more and more companies to outsource the cost of compliance to a vendor.

That doesn't negate @avighnay's point that we are moving to zero touch sales, I just opened a bank account with a bank with no branches without making any phone calls in a couple of minutes. This is in an area that is highly regulated. The same applies to software.

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