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Comment by elmar | Hacker News Reader

Fresh out of Y Combinator, Tandem lands millions from Andreessen Horowitz

https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/20/tandem/

"is raising a $7.5 million seed financing at a valuation north of $30 million"

"We’re told several top venture capital firms were vying for a stake in Tandem. One firm even gifted the founders a tandem bike, sources tell TechCrunch, resorting to amusing measures to sway the Tandem team. But it was a16z — which has an established interest in the growing future of work sector, evidenced by its recent investment in the popular email app Superhuman — that ultimately won the coveted lead investor spot."

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This sounds like what Kevin Kwok was describing[0] in his recent essay, The Arc of Collaboration. Even down to using the Discord metaphor. Kwok says that Slack ended up being more of an exception handler when normal processes break down. Contrast to Discord, which is more of a meta-layer around games and integrates within game platforms. I wonder if Tandem is what will make collaborative communication ubiquitous, i.e. sales talks to engineering talks to design all from within their various environments.

From TC: Tandem provides a virtual office for remote teams, complete with video-chatting and messaging capabilities, as well as integrations with top enterprise tools, including Notion, GitHub and Trello.

[0] https://kwokchain.com/2019/08/16/the-arc-of-collaboration/

I hope not to sound like a jerk or get downvoted for this, but what's the point of quoting the article without adding at least an opinion or thought?

:) well I posted on a FYI - For Your Information only angle.

My thoughts: seed valuations for YC Demo Day are probably on a all time high, VC's giving gifts to be able to get in rounds looks like something out of Silicon Valley HBO, ok I remembered everything on SV HBO is based on real life events.

I think the most ridiculous thing is not even the gift, but the fact that it is a Tandem bike (just because of the name).

What's the rationale there? "Ohh their name is Tandem. Let's buy them a Tandem bike to convince them to accept our term sheet. It's our fiduciary responsibility to do this stupid thing".

For me, that's just a red flag. How little can you add to a company besides money, that you have to resort to this chaplinesque strategy?

Why not? Personal relationships are a part of why deals are made. Showing some whimsy and personal attention isn't going to hurt, and costs what? ~500?

Not really your point, but if somebody gifted a $500 tandem/boat anchor for a $30MM co, that might indeed be a red flag. A $500 tandem is probably a boat anchor no matter what the circumstances are...

This is the norm in business. It forces reciprocity. It’s why most sales orgs spend so much on business entertainment.

I (think) I know what you’re saying, what I’m saying is that if I said I was interested in your billion dollar automobile startup, and bought you a car as a gesture, you might be excited, until I handed you the keys to a used 1998 Hyundai Excel.

Unless I really am missing the point, because a $500 bicycle really is a pretty cheap machine these days, let alone a $500 tandem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Excel

It's the thought that counts right? Tandem is the name, they are gifted a tandem bike, which reinforces the symbolism of doing something together. I'd hope it would be perceived either neutrally, or generate some very small positive feelings, but not negatively.

I appreciate all the positive readings.

Maybe it’s that I’m personally more focused on downsizing than accumulating :)

More that anything creates reciprocity. It’s why I am very wary of taking things from vendors.

It’s basically a joke. Jokes attract attention of other people. Investors need to set up a relationship with the founders.

> I think the most ridiculous thing is not even the gift, but the fact that it is a Tandem bike (just because of the name).

Similar to Governors convincing Bezos to open HQ2 on their state by writing product reviews on amazon.com, giant cactus and what not.

Why is a sense of humour a red flag? Founders are people too you know.

> VC's giving gifts to be able to get in rounds looks like something out of Silicon Valley HBO

It's actually super common. I've probably received 20+ random gifts. Everything from shoes to jackets to bitcoin miners and bottles of wine (I don't drink).

If there's a $7.5m deal that will eventually be worth 10x that (say it returns $75m to the investor), a $200 tandem bike doesn't really move the needle.

> It's actually super common

I didn't know that, I knew that was normal practice on recruiting but I didn't imagined it on fundraising.

> that will eventually be worth 10x

The seed stage VC's are probably targeting more on the 100x - 1,000x range :)

In the case of an article that lists 82 startups, their comment is essentially saying "Here's a startup I think is notable". Hence their opinion.

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