Startup investing is still relationship- and location-driven | Hacker News Reader

Startup investing is still relationship- and location-driven

medium.com

15 pointsjedberg6 comments

"The problem is that within a reasonable proximity of these founders, there are no venture firms, so they will not be discovered. Without the capital needed to hire additional engineers, sales people, and build infrastructure, their idea will wither and die."

It's still possible to bootstrap a company without venture capital. For example, the founders might live off their own savings for a couple of years until they have a product to sell. Or the founders can supplement their income by doing contract work on the side.

Also, not all startups need huge investments in infrastructure because not every startup creates a consumer product that's used by millions of users. For example, if your product is a developer tool, all you might need is a simple $50-per-month virtual server where the product can be downloaded.

Great article. I think the big thing for me that Arlo left out was the parallel process for someone who is already connected:

1. Call rich investor friend tell him my idea and who is on the tentative team (provided we get the $2M in seed funding)

2. (optional) e-mail him pitch deck

3. Funds are wired

The article's title breaks the HN guidelines, so we changed it to a representative sentence from the text. Happy to change it again if anyone suggests a better one.

Question: In the future, should I attempt to summarize the article or use the exact title from the post (which I think is another HN rule?)

Because I agree that the title was terrible but I've been scolded in the past for changing titles.

The guideline is: "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." (It has never said to always use the exact title, though people sometimes misremember it that way. More discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9898976, if anyone cares.)

So yes, please do change misleading or linkbait titles to make them not be misleading or linkbait.

When changing a title, it's better to find accurate, neutral language in the article itself than to make up something new. We usually look at subtitles, introductory sentences, or (if necessary) the body of the text. Occasionally we don't find anything suitable for a title and have to make one up, but that's rare.

Cool, thanks for the clarification!

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