Ask PG: Feature or Business Question from Investors

They're saying that a) they worry you don't have sufficient potential, and b) they are not very smart.

The reason it's a sign the investor isn't very smart is that there's no real distinction. There are a lot of impressive startups (e.g. Twitter) that could have been called mere features when they started. So all anyone accusing you of being a feature is really saying is that you're small, which you both already know.

They're asking where you're going with the company, without wanting to get drawn into incremental improvements. Say you built a website that analyzed your social graph on facebook and showed you who your most connected/least connected friends were. Suppose you stopped there, or started iterating on more metrics (who's added the most friends in the last week?): then your website feels like a feature, and not a long-term business; it's too easy for facebook to implement the same feature set if you ever generate cash.

But, if you can explain how this feature is just a trojan horse, and you're going to go across social networks, or introduce a dating service, or implement some sort of real-world trust/recommendation system, somehow building long term value and competitive advantage; then you look more like a business.

They're just asking how you plan to get there, or just to help them understand ways that you could get there.