VC Guide (founders 'reviews' of investors)

This is the exact sort of feedback shared privately among experienced entrepreneurs - it's just finally accessible to everyone. From my look at the reviews I'd say it's about 80% true to my experience.

It's shocking - have a look before it gets taken down.

This seems like a great idea: Founders can share feedback about VC's with other founders, which can be great for finding the right fit, or calling out bad acting.

Unfortunately, it seems to be ridiculous pile of trashy gossip and innuendo. Positive reviews are gloating, negative reviews are almost childish, I'm really upset at the casual lack of professionalism here.

First, to speak publicly and poorly about someone is a 'very big thing to do'. These words can have a lot of impact, it's like 'filing a lawsuit' you and better be prepared to be very conscientious and correct about it all if you think you're going to take a run at someone's career.

Second, it seems a lot of founders have little ability to contextualize for 'other people's positions'. Many of the negative reviews I think are sour grapes and excuses on 'we didn't get funding' and then misinterpreting or misrepresenting the positions of others.

"The VC's didn't even get back to us, they're obviously disorganized clowns" -> or maybe your company isn't worth their time?

"He told us he was investing in a similar company, but we couldn't find it" -> or maybe he was finding a polite way to say 'no'?

"We assumed this guy was kind of a hustler, and didn't know what he was doing, but it turned out he knew a few things" -> what position are you to make such an assessment, and why on earth would you say such things publicly about someone.

"We met XXX from top-tier VC and it was underwhelming. He didn't seem to be interested or ask very good questions" -> Maybe your company is boring, he knew it was a 'no' in the first five minutes, and was polite enough to entertain you with some questions?

Founders, as a non-VC I'm going to say you're going to have to be very, very careful about talking publicly especially negatively about others, VCs or not. Get past your petty emotional response and consider that other people will view your situation differently, and that nobody is obligated to like you, pay attention to you, or care one way or another about you.

If someone does something clearly nefarious, and is a problem for others, then possibly you could make a case for this, but otherwise, this exercise is pointless.

It does seem however there's also quite a lot of 'shifty' investors on some level which is not surprising, but it's going to take much more quality, professional feedback for this type of forum to be useful.