Some Reflections on VC Investment Decisions | Hacker News Reader

Some Reflections on VC Investment Decisions

bothsidesofthetable.com

70 pointselobrien10 comments

"I’m dubious of entrepreneurs who key buyer value is highest price. Building a company is hard and the chances of success are low. I’m looking for entrepreneurs that recognize that supportive VCs who bring relationships, experience, perseverance, tolerance and who are unflappable in difficult times are worth their weight in gold. People who solely value highest price as the decision factor exhibit something about their decision-making processes."

^^^^^ The challenge here as an entrepreneur is that unless you work with a VC for an extended period of time like a year, it's very hard to know how much value they're truly going to add. Every VC claims to be the world's most supportive/connected/the founder's friend, but it's very hard to truly figure that out without working with them IMO. As a result, it's easier to just prioritize based on numbers most of the time.

The sad truth is that most investors will invest their time in their most successful companies. Meaning that if you're one of the weaker ones, you're unlikely to get the time you need. And if you're hot, well, you don't need the investor's help anyways. So these promises have a way of not being fulfilled.

Also - if the value of investor A's advice is better than that of investor B, then the entrepreneur would be willing to take a discount on A's term sheet relative to B. Thus, the market is saying the delta is minimal, because entrepreneurs are optimizing for price.

Investors are like employees in the sense that you have to actually work and get along with them. Unlike employees, however, you can't fire the investors. So in theory you should be more careful with investors than employees (and we all know to be careful when hiring). I can thus understand if investors view price optimizing as incredibly short sited and a character flaw.

On the other hand, investors are unlike employees in that they can be ignored if they're not a good fit/not adding value/worse yet, detracting value. Except if they're on your board.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that it would be cool if there was a way for investors/entrepreneurs to try each other out first.

Except if they're on your board.

Pretty sure the Author is a "VC" in the sense that he is investing early with a BOD seat in his primary investments. That seems relevant--ie, its not special case--its the base case. Other classes of investor--eg late stage mezanine--is also often priced more competitevly on price alone. And angels are typically not investing quite at the stage where BOD governance is coming into play (pre series A).

Furthermore, assuming that one is unable to predict which VC will be most helpful, the valuation that VCs place on your business would be a natural indicator for how much potential they see in the company. Therefore it might just be smart to take the highest valuation, assuming there are no red flags.

The pre-money valuation is the company value before the investment, and thus cannot factor in the future investor contribution. It is simply an opinion on what the investor thinks the company is worth, and is thus independent of the future value the investor may (or may not) bring.

I actually checked the comments to see if anyone else jumped on this quote. Couldn't agree with you more.

Mark spends a great deal of his post talking about how the world is getting smaller, and his time is getting more and more scarce. There are so many "early stage investors" now that entrepreneurs have the same problem. You could take 3 meetings a day on investors who "want to catch up and see how your traction is". Many of them claim that they can provide insight, mentorship, yadda yadda. Some of them will, some of them won't, and as others have pointed out, some of them will want to, but may have to invest disproportionally in backing other horses.

I understand why he wrote this paragraph, as he wants to reinforce that he's one of the ones who gives attention to his startups, but it reads as if he's either naive or lying.

This paragraph aside, the rest of it is solid.

-edit- spelling

That's why as a startup part of your due diligence should be calling up founders that the the VC has worked with for an extended period of time and getting references for how helpful the VC has been (for both the firm and the individual partner you'll be working with).

It's worth noting that there are other reasons not to focus on valuation. If you take a high valuation now that has a direct impact on future rounds, a higher valuation implies higher expectations and if you don't meet them you may struggle to raise money in the future (or have to take a down-round with all the negative repercussions that has).

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