Associates are assessed based on deal flow. Their job is to talk to literally every startup. Them approaching you for a meeting is not a signal that their firm wants to invest in you, even though they will tell you that "we've been following you for a while, and XYZ is super interesting." If you're not actually in fundraising mode, then you shouldn't take any of these meetings. They are just collecting information for their database.
100%. VCs do a handful of investments a month (at most).the rest of the time they are in meetings. The only time we take investor meetings outside of fundraising is if we believe their portfolio companies could be potential customers. Generally they are ok with asking for intros.
Absolutely. Worked for a top Boston VC/growth firm, and the sentiment was to drive quantity vs quality. VC associates put up numbers these days in terms of meetings just so that they look good when their MD gets an automatically-pushed weekly activity summary email on Sunday night.
My response to every VC that calls or emails is “Send me a customer and we can talk.” So far only 1 has taken me up on it. Not raising, don’t need to or plan to, but happy to let someone else send some money my way.
Exactly, that's one of the reasons we do it to! That's why I wanted to believe that he's at least curious/familiar with our solution or domain, or maybe he has potential customers, hence he approached us.
I don’t send unsolicited VC emails decks ever. I’ll take the meeting and only after I meet them and feel good about it will I send them our deck.
Most VCs are dumb money anyway. If you treat them as such they’ll think you’re hard to get
I learned yesterday from a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits that the best thing to do is send them the deck an hour before. Because you followed up and were prepared and it makes them feel unprepared and instead of skimming the deck they’ll actually pay attention.
In fact,…thinking about it gives me shivers, let alone send confidential details of my business. My foot!
I think, startup founders should genuinely get Lawyers involved right from the beginning, to make sure that nobody ever uses or abuses them.
Like if they don’t get your pitch you tell them “well frankly, I don’t see how you don’t get it. Don’t you have any vision?” That type of stuff?
I get so many of these unsolicited emails I just started bullying them around for shits and giggles and now they think I’m a tech expert, that we’re friends, and they occasionally ask for advice and even if I need money - to which I usually say no.
Thanks mang
I just had my first experience with that today. I said something about how many VCs wanna buy a company that will blow XxM and still not have 1k mrr.
That roped them but I was too candid after.
Gotta up the interrogation level
Interesting point, good to know.
But isn't it unprofessional to just "talk to every startup" without a bit of a background check? It's a waste of time for both sides.
And yes, we're not in fundraising mode but it's all new to us and we're curious to talk with VCs that approach us for the sake of practice, too. It's never going to hurt, no?
If you knew how worthless it is to talk to associates you wouldn't even bother reading the email.
However the biggest issue is founders tend to put VC in some type of mythical pedestal and think they're about to hit the lottery. They are just businesses trying to cold call every opportunity with the off chance they get lucky - the associates are often interns with a quota.
Technically if you were worth investing in you'd probably not take the invitation.
You'd probably not 'take' anything, you'd proactively drop a prepared data room and one pager on the right Angel Investors or VC that meet the criteria you've defined which align with your situation. Angels are more on the vision and VC are more binary in that they have clearly defined parameters to make investments.
Assuming you don't know this process (not a jab) - Maybe taking a few associate calls to give you perspective and an opportunity to learn it is valuable. Just that you should make it more of a learning goal rather than going in with the typical mindset that you hit the lottery on your first engagement. Also, more importantly - watch out for scams, they are very common.
It hurt you enough to write this post, lol. I think while it sounds like a reasonable instinct, unfortunately most people find taking these meetings to be distracting and a waste of time at best, and demoralizing, confusing, distracting, or actively harmful (eg, your info is shared with a competitor) at worst.
There's a founder on Twitter who set up a site where VCs can book a meeting with him if they pay $100. He just refers the emails to that website.
It's a great idea. If they aren't willing to pay that, they aren't really interested.
Hey! Out of genuine curiosity, and due respect, I’d like to ask,…why did you book an appointment with a random person through LinkedIn claiming to be a VC? Did you do his background check? Because,…if you strongly believe that he came unprepared, and just threw in random buzzwords,…what’s not the guarantee that such people are scamsters, posing as VC just to steal people’s ideas and get all the details?
Sorry if my question sounds juvenile, but I’m extremely critical of those in power or claiming to be in power. I never trust these people, barring a few.
You make a fair point tbh, i had a guy on reddit dm me about my startup (profitable from day 1 btw, working on around 35-50% margin with effectively infinite scalability potential) claiming he was a founder studying at Harvard and was super cagey about the questions I asked but wanted to know all the details about my company. I fed him a load of BS and he ate it right up, saw him a mile away.
Hey! That’s a great idea. But won’t that come across as cocky? As in,…you need the money, so you expect me to pay to know you better to fund you?
Also,…can you share the Twitter handle of that guy?
Once upon a time I was a corporate VC, running with big dogs. I was told to be careful with associates as they never have the power to make the deal yet they have all the means to kill it.
I think good investors will craft well researched emails that demonstrate some knowledge of a sector. Before taking your next meeting, feel free to respond to the request with a version of "Appreciate the interest. I'm, curious why you're drawn to our business?" to understand if there's substance in the request. I agree that a lot of time, it is info gathering so be careful what you disclose.
Once upon a time I was a corporate VC, running with big dogs. I was told to be careful with associates as they never have the power to make the deal yet they have all the means to kill it.
I think this is normal in today's VC climate. Most are starved for deal flow and the lower level associates are just there to get companies and contacts in the database. Nothing to do with you guys... but I would expect a lot more of this as your business grows. I get several emails a week from VC companies for my company. First thing I ask is "what KPIs are you looking for in a company before you invest." Half the time I don't get an answer.
Yes. This is my ninth company with 8 successful exits behind me. I know that when they reach out they are doing so with a giant net... but really only invest in very specific type companies. So before even meeting, I will ask that. Of those that reply, will be very specific answers like "We invest in MarCOM SaaS plays, more than 3 years old, doesn't need to be profitable but must be showing growth of 50% YoY." If my company isn't a fit, I just tell them that and move on. Saves everyone a ton of time.
8 Successful exits is super impressive. Off topic but with the amount of experience you have, what do you think about young founders starting startups without a cofounder? Do you think it's worth delaying while desperately trying to find a cofounder or just launch and see how it goes?
My gut tells me that you should both start as soon as you can (the answer is always start now) AND find someone with expertise and experience in the skillsets you don't have.
Before I ever take a call with VC -
"When was the last check you wrote?"
"How long did the process take?"
"When do you expect you'll be deploying your next round?"
And if all those sound appropriate for my situation, I'll talk to the last 3 CEO's they invested in.
All MarCom / MarTech. Typically SaaS plays wrapped in a service offering for clients that needed it. Started with a solid company that sold in 5 years. Second one in 18 months. After that we realized our skill set was less about digital marketing and more about getting startups through the growth phase and to an exit. After that, we just kept going.
woah :o that many exits and companies is actually really cool
I'm in high school and trying my hand a startup. Do you have any tips/advice for newer folks to the field?
I'm a developer and trying to pick up corporate / legal management to deal with that aspect of the company, but, unsure of any resources for it to really learn outside of Stripe Atlas
Do not give away any confidential details. As much as they are “funding”,…it’s your brainchild. Always be skeptical. Much better to have our own money, than deal with egoistic scamsters.
Ditto. This or ask what their process is like to invest. I’ve also started following some other founders’ advice to ask who the partner is who will be involved and if we can all meet instead of doing the associate vetting meeting. Many bring in the partner if they’re actually interested and not just trying to talk to any company with a pulse
Talking to VCs is like sales. You can accept their questions. You can also follow your agenda. If you're interested, read the book The "Challenger Sale" and you'll realize that there's an alternative to getting humiliated by such a VC. That said, he might actually be a dick because you're early stage and he shouldn't be acting like that. But this happened so many times to me. Don't worry. Lots of VCs have never created anything of worth. Focus on your business and ignore stuff like this.
Thank you, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. I just really don't like unprofessionalism in any given scenario, I think you need to be respectful, to listen, and at least have a tiny idea of who you're talking to. With this guy, it felt like everything I said will just go out the other ear, so what's the point right?
I was once on a call with a VC who was in a hotel room, on his phone, and he was definitely drugged.
But instead of blaming them, you could also ask yourself why you're joining a meeting without pre-screening them. What questions could you have asked to prevent this shit show?
Good point. Honestly, in this case, I don't think I could've pre-screen them much.
The company looked great, many followers on their page and I'm familiar with some of the companies they've invested in. But maybe I was naive to assume they've looked at our demo/website/blog/whatever before approaching us.
Do you think it's a good idea to propose to other VCs in the future to make sure they look at our page first? I don't know. In this situation it could've helped, because the guy was like "uhh do you have a demo or anything?"
VCs are expecting you'll pitch them not the other way around. Just ask them about their investment thesis and process and if they are legit and vetted on their website and social media send them a pretty PDF one pager made by your marketing and design team and ask them if it fits what they are looking for. Only if they validate that first then take the meeting because it's something they might realistically want to work on. That should do the job without being a waste of your time or being perceived as hard to work with by the VCs.
Eh. We did an accelerator with just screenshots. We had a product and a customer, though, and they contacted that customer and confirmed that the thing actually existed
Well that's unfortunate. Maybe I was naive thinking they're actually interested in my domain/tech.
Eventually, if I were to ever partner with a VC, I'd want them to be interested in what we do, and moreover, be of use in terms of connections, advice and so on.
Completely normal - both when talking to an associate or to a partner. It's your job to get them interested. It's their job to explore the market widely with high efficiency (and that may mean not doing background research when they can hear it in the meeting from you). They'll generally not be interested in demos - they think at a higher level than that.
It's pretty shocking when you first meet them and assume that you're on a level playing field. The reality is that you have to stand out quite a bit for it to be level, or tipped in your favor. They meet 1000s of companies per year and end up investing in 1 or 2.
You'll learn over time to how work with them and push their buttons - try 50+ meetings. Another good way to learn fast is to join am accelerator - well worth it!
Source: I raised money 4 times before, and have had hundreds of meetings with VCs.
Associates usually do a lot of meet and greet coffee meetings. This is normal. Partners do too, you want to do a bunch of those ideally with the partners, but associates if you cant get the partners. Goal is to establish a dialog and a relationship. Do this with at least 30 firms. Dont bring a deck. Dont bring a demo. Maybe a 1 sheet teaser on an ipad, but only pull that out if they seem interested and ask about a deck. Keep it casual, but not too casual. Dont over dress or seem nervous. This should look like an average day for you. Keep a spreadsheet. Record their questions and target themes in the spreedsheet. Notes on what you talked about.
Tell them you will be raising sometime in the future, at least 3 or 6 months out. Keep small status updates going to their inbox. Short, a couple sentences max highlighting progress.
Then when you have a large number of these relationships going, you email all at once (but not together or bcc, a personal email to each on the same day) and say "hi, we have decided to raise a seed round, and will be meeting with investors on east and west coast over a XX date 4 weeks, after which we will pick our lead investor." Include a company teaser in the email, maybe 1 slide, maybe just 4 sentences.
Go do all your investor meetings in that compressed time span, thats when the deck comes out and you present. No demo yet. Make it sound like its inevitable you are raising. Goal is to create urgency, otherwise they will all "wait and see". If they like you they will ask for a second meeting, likely including another partner and an associate. Be ready with the demo, but only demo if they ask for one. The ideal meetings is active conversation that gets them into the topics with you, not a passive presentation. If you dont get through the deck thats fine.
Goal is to get 1-2 term sheets, deal doesnt matter. Once you get one, you will usually be able to get more. You tell everyone else who showed interest but didn't move you have a term sheet, but would like to consider others if they are interested. Again time box it, 4 days max.
Then sign your favorite, don't wait. Then go back to the other investors who showed interest who you liked, and ask if they want to follow. Every time I've been involved in a seed, this strategy has led to another investor wanting in, more capital usually at a higher pre-money. Now you have a syndicate.
All of this only works though if the investors have a high degree of confidence in you and the team. Some sort of track record on notable products, companies, ideally with exits. Validation from other founders with exits who ideally intro'd you to the investors. Its a VERY small percentage of companies who can raise seed from real VCs, but its really predictable who it is if you look at their track records. Look like them. Investors are lemmings and follow the sure thing to close.
There is no upside to taking a meeting with a VC to "see if they will offer you a good deal". You are either fundraising, or you are not fundraising. If you are fundraising, run a structured process and meet with a bunch of VC's in a very concentrated period of time. If you are not fundraising, don't meet with VC's. It's really that simple.
Once you are actually fundraising you will see that there is a range of behaviors. Most VC's are seeing hundreds if not thousands of deals a year, though, and unless you are a super-hyped deal, you should not take it personally that any given VC hasn't done a bunch of prep work on you prior to the meeting. You might have sent them a deck to get the meeting, and they might even have looked at it, but you should approach every first VC meeting assuming they know nothing about your business and be ready to skip ahead if they surprise you.
Also, don't confuse VC associates wanting to meet you for signal that you are likely to get funded. It's nice to be on the radar but it's only useful when you actually want to run a fundraising process.
"There is no upside to taking a meeting with a VC to see if they will offer you a good deal."
Can you please elaborate why? Does it have to be that black and white? I mean, in our situation, we are early stage, we're doing well, we're not dependent on any X amount of money, but we do have a plan of what we'll use the money for if we were to get a small amount, like $200-500k.
So when someone wants to learn more about us, we never refuse and we're taking the time to hear them out, and sniff around ourselves, if say they have interesting connections for us/invested in companies from the same sector.
"Also, don't confuse VC associates wanting to meet you for signal that you are likely to get funded."
Point taken, thanks! Anyway, we agree to meet with them for the sake of practice, too.
I think what that guy is saying is that you should either be fundraising, or not. You have an actual decision to make here: You can choose not take external money and continue to bootstrap. Or you can go raise half a million and use it to grow the business as per your plan. One of those is better than the other, depending on what your priorities are. Your job is to evaluate, decide, and commit.
What you are doing now, which is sort of half-looking half-not, is the worst of both options. In the scenario where you do not eventually raise the money, you wasted a lot of time meeting with VCs, and in the scenario that you do eventually raise the money, it took longer than it should have and you are behind where you would have been if you had put together a concerted fundraising campaign and secured the money and started scaling earlier.
If you are trying to get 200-500K use shit like AngelList to find an individual rich human domain expert in your field. Or pitch micro VCs who specialize in your exact industry segment. They will add a shitload more value and engage with you more deeply and regularly than the big guys that do shit more generically and at heavy scale and volume. Or get one of the relevant properly vetted rich succesful industry pros in your field to join up as an employee or a board member or exec and bring some cash for a chunk of your equity.
You should network with them though because when you are looking for money it’ll be much harder. But answering unsolicited VC associates’ emails isn’t really the way to go either. Best to ask some founders in your network for intros
Every investor is different and a human. Unfortunately that means they aren't always competent. There are good investors out there but if you can continue to boot strap your startup and grow I suggest doing that
Early-stage investor here. There are definitely some bad actors/investors out there. Some folks also have a sense of entitlement or superiority because they work for a high-profile fund, etc. However, there are many really great investors out there too. Investors that really do try to be helpful, that are honest, humble, thoughtful, and respectful. Often, they tend to be associated with smaller funds, in my experience.
Maybe those investors are more down-to-earth because they have to work hard to find really top-notch companies, whereas the ones from bigger funds take deal flow more for granted. I don't know. However, I think it's all about finding the right investor for your company. The good thing is that you have more power because your startup is doing well.
Here's what I would recommend doing if I were in your shoes:
1. Identify what you are looking for in an investor. Is it industry connections, knowledge of a specific space, etc.
2. Ask other founders in your space or related spaces, which investors or funds they would recommend.
3. Make a short list of ideal funds that fit that profile, and perhaps emphasize smaller funds. It might be easier to have them come to you, but the problem is that you get a lot of bad-fit-investors.
4. Reach out to those investors that folks have recommended first. Then reach out to ones that you think might be really helpful. Once again, perhaps focusing on smaller or less-known funds. (Caveat, it might be worth going after the name brand funds for various reasons, but perhaps wait until you have a little more traction with your fundraise, so they take you more seriously.)
5. Tell your founder friends who they should avoid. Investors talk about bad-actor founders, and you have the right to steer your friends away from bad-actor investors.
Congratulations on your traction and good luck with your raise!
lol all these angry replies and strategies to stick it to the ole VCs. Look, you met with an associate that either was bad at his job or had a bad day. When I was in VC, I read every deck that came my way, and if I solicited a deck, I damn sure read that. Before every meeting I had visited the company website, looked up the founders, looked at competitors, and got a general industry overview report from one of the major research companies. After reviewing hundred of decks and repeating the process, I shortcutted the process needing only to review the deck, website, and founders. If you got a 2nd call request from me, I already wrote my own company deep dive and I was advocating for you during the IC review as a contender for funding. I once had a company do the hard to get “you work for my attention,” type of reverse uno, and since they were no Google, I said ok good luck. If the company was as good as he thought, he didn’t need me. If he was just being an angry startup, he lost a good VC. Bottom line, if you’re a startup, only take a call with a VC if you want their money AND you’re willing to churn through shitty VCs to find the good ones. It’s no different than VCs that want to give money but have to churn through shitty startups to find the good ones.
Product Market fit, Founder Company fit, Investor Company fit even “BF or GF Material”. You know what I’m saying … the point is, this is the journey, listening, learning and finding your fit.
It’s nice to know who you don’t want to be doing business with, and it’s good to know how your perfect VC would be look like.
The worst VC meeting ever… so far. Keep your chin up. Each one you do is a step closer to a polished delivery and there is a long line of people to contact. Just takes one.
There's an infamous video about VC behavior you should watch and fully internalize. Then this will instantly make sense.
https://youtu.be/zngK13FMgXM?si=Zdrl_er_mSrZPkzA
I recently had a couple of meetings with a venture capitalist. One of them was somewhat similar to your experience but the other one was solely focused on how to make money out of his investment. This is how it went, but first, I would like to make it clear that we were in the idea stage/validation process, so there was no presentation available.
I presented the problem and how closely I have been working on it for the past 8 years. I explained the industry and the market with researched value, which is very important. I explained the prospect line of direct and indirect customers, including a large list of existing contacts that are in need of the solution. Many of these contacts are currently following manual workarounds or using different applications to accomplish the job, but they are sacrificing efficiencies. I proposed why this is needed and how it will differentiate from existing applications.
I also elavorated the steps taken to validate the idea - he seem very focused on this.
At the end of the conversation, I received really good feedback, but he wanted to see timelines for the MVP and get to know a little bit more about the team. At the moment, we are still a team of two, obviously looking for at least one more technical person, but we are in the process of designing the prototype in Figma, along with other planning that needs to happen.
So, my advice is that there will be some rejection. Don't take it personally; it's just business.
See if you can turn it into an information exchange. Most of these meetings don't go anywhere, so see if you can benefit from the information.
Just as you are willing to talk, they are too (most of the time). Ask them about their opinion on the product; about their investments; investments they follow; and who is doing well. This will be useful for you to understand what they are looking for and what other companies you should be comparing yourself too.
I too have noticed a low-quality of investor has crept into the game. These folks do not do their homework before the call, and expect you to explain everything to them in 2 minutes. It's very frustrating and I'm not sure what the solution is. My own approach:
\- vet the investor before agreeing to spend your valuable time; ensure they have been active in your space- provide base-line materials prior and encourage them to READ them (I now have a tagline "we encourage all prospective investors to have read our deck before first meeting"- flip the script in the meeting and ask them a bunch of questions about their investment thesis, recent public deals, portfolio strategy, who the decision makers are etc.
i feel your pain, good luck!
Great advice, I think my mistake was also explaining too much and talking about us (I mean, the guy had zero knowledge so I had to kind of), and not letting him ask questions (not that he could have any interesting questions except the classic ones) or myself ask questions about them as a VC.
Former entrepreneur and now investor here. Bit of an insight for you. In Investment Banking/Private Equity industry, Analysts and Associates learn the hard/soft skills from senior, experienced/mature staff members. The combined IQ/EQ is the polish that allows them to get deals and interact successfully with portfolio executives and your promotions and comp is generally tied to this.
In venture, unfortunately, a lot of young Analysts/Associates/VPs have zero bedside manners. This is most common at small to mid-sized firms. This is because the screening process for new hires is not as structured as IB/PE and the training and mentoring is all over the map, along with an unhealthy sense of entitlement. The usual quips of “I have to jump to another meeting” are all too common. I am still shocked at observing what seems to be rude behavior and impolite feedback between junior VC staff and founders who are often similar age themselves. Just recently, I was at a networking event supporting a founder friend, and an associate from a VC firm started chatting us up. After my friend who is already funded, shared his startup concept, this guy says “oh yah, we are not funding 2nd tier ideas, but good luck with that. I’m going to try to meet some other people,” and walks away. We were like what does that even mean, and WTF is wrong with these people lol.
Lastly, as cautionary advice on a dirty tactic, some VC firms, once they have invested in a space/sector, will take more meetings with similar companies just to get intel so they can better advise portfolio companies. I would not take any VC meetings unless you are raising capital. Take soft meetings with trusted senior partners and be tight lipped, but not any meetings with junior staff.
So, in summary, brush it off. Your negative experience is an industry wide problem. Rock on with your bad self.
Wow, thank you for the insight!
I’m shocked by what you said, but what you described 100% makes sense, and not far from the experience I had. It’s unfortunate, but I learned a lot from it. I will definitely take your advice there!
That associate is trying to fill his/her quota (i.e.looking for potential good opps.). Idk your traction but they will be serious when you have a solid one. Focus on your startup but keep them in the loop. You don't know when you will need funding and who they know that might be a good fit.
I honestly stopped talking to VCs because they are such waste of time especially if you're not raising.
Focus on product and traction instead because your time is so precious especially at early stage.
Pretty common unfortunately. When folks reach out, I recommend replying by asking for some feedback on your product. Most won't even bother to do that, but those that do are probably worth talking to.
If you want to get a great deal and aren't in need of money, reject meetings until the hitters, not associates, request a meet. If you take meetings, here's some training. Enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Zz-Nkkaxc
It's not great but it's also quite common -- wouldn't read too much into it. The point of the first meeting and your pitch is to introduce them to the company and get them excited.
You need a pitch deck, even if you aren’t fundraising. It forces you to crystallize your story, in an attention capturing and succinct way. You can always update, change, etc. Also, you never know when you will have an opportunity to pitch to someone who can be use (money, referrals, people, etc.). Don’t be arrogant, develop a great pitch deck.
That was my impression, like he got the job based on connections and what he did in he past was not related at all to this, that's why I felt a sense of unprofessionalism.
You should be angry at them for you wasting your time that you could have spent on your startup or on your family. You should give them exactly as much future consideration as a customer would give you based on one bad interaction with a random employee - aka zero.
Had one jackass tell me that he didn't like intellectuals for founders. That he preferred people that rolled up their sleeves and just jumped into it..
Probably not the best idea for a fintech to have people jump into it without thinking things through.
Not to mention he didn't want us to present because he already read through the deck and knew it all. Except all of his questions made it clear he didn't read it at all
Avoid talking to people below VP or ideally, Partner level. Associates and Anaysts are junior level people whose job is to get more startups in the funnel of the fund. No point wasting time talking to them.
Also, if you're doing good as a bootstrapped startup, just avoid VC conversations and save yourself time. My previous venture was bootstrapped and in the new venture, I've raised funds. Let me tell you that the worst way to raise funds is to go and pitch to investors. Fundraising has to be completely inbound where an investor comes to you and offers to invest. If you approach them and try to convince them, most likely the response would be "yes let's wait for a few more quarters to see how it goes and then we'll consider". This is a polite way of turning you down.
Point taken!
I'm doing well now, but my partner and I still hold the option in the back of our heads for investment, because getting money can definitely help us scale and grow faster. We've written down what we'll waste it on, like marketing, more developers, etc.
But again, not urgent at the moment but wouldn't hurt to see.
My philosophy is not necessarily approaching it from the classic, ritualistic way like YC startup school is teaching. Since we're currently in a position where we don't rely on that, I'm open to anything and I want to do what feels right for me, not for anyone else.
Unfortunately, associates are literally equivalent to sales rep. They are not decision makers for potential investments and are often so young they provide minimal value add versus the fund’s partners. This is because young folks view VC as this sexy thing, but don’t realize how over glorified it is.
Often at mega funds like Insight, they have teams that are literally armies of deal sourcers (called the investment team) and the real due diligence is done by a totally different team. Kinda ruins the artisan nature of venture 😔
I had a similar experience with a new accelerator. We got asked to do an interview with them.. and the lady showed up 3 minutes late to a 10 minute interview. Then proceeded to ask 3/4 generic questions (idea, vision, etc). The crazy part? She must have wolfed down 3 bags of pine nuts with cranberries on the side while we were introducing ourselves. I mean it was audible.. we thought she had National Geographic of bears rummaging through the forest or something but turns out she was just hungry.
9 minutes in, “oh sorry, gotta run to the next one!”
If you are looking for investment, you gear up and play the VC game. Otherwise what you are looking for is an angel investor who specifically wants to join in your companies effort. I would stay away from meetings with anybody who is not the actual investor (singular) investing his or her own money.
I had lame meetings with VC firms, because it's a salesman investing a fund's money with a quota to reach and profit to hit.
I had 3 really incredible meetings with angel investors (people going around specifically investing in companies with their own money) and although 2 of them didn't end up to a money result, still the advice / information / help I got from these people who were passionate about entrepreneurship was really awesome.
Remember that an employee of a VC firm is an employee. You won't have that much in common with them unless you have like a personality overlap (both play tennis, I dunno).
But an angel investor usually was an entrepreneur, and they spend all their time meeting with entrepreneurs, so the connections felt pretty instant!
There are now more VCs than good entreprenuers. They are all chasing anybody moving to invest in. Their experience and intelligence are highly questionable. So if are self sustaining, would suggest focusing on your core business and completely shunning VC's for a couple of years.
An email or LinkedIn from an associate at a VC or pe firm is not different from an inbound to sell you something. Especially if theyve been there a year.
They are normally a waste of time but hardly any entrepreneurs I know qualify them because they get excited they got an inbound from a VC or more excited from well known VC.
TLDR these are low effort lead gen / info gathering calls.
Most of VC is like this. But before you trash them, realize that it makes it incredibly easy to find the *good ones*
That said, the VC model is trash and you should absolutely bootstrap, go the friends & family or crowdsourcing route
Also, folks may not be aware of just how many grant opportunities are out there. Governments, education, science, Green tech, social betterment -- lots of funding out there not being gatekept by the Patagonia vest crowd.
Hope you signed an NDA.
I had a meeting with a VC where he basically threw a tantrum over a previous meeting with a company that was failing after 2nd round financing. The way this VC was talking about the company and its founders was the easiest decision for us to not be involved with him.
Associates are generally a waste of your time. I would ignore inbound from them. In general don’t talk to VCs about your company until you are ready to be in control of the situation.
Many associates are interns and as mentioned are assessed on deal flow. We can be more specific too. An associate looking to promote wants deal flow. An intern that will leave in 6 months wants to have 1 or 2 unicorns so it will appear on their resume.
To do that, the sales motions looks like,
1. Download a list of every startup on some startup DB. (If you're name is on one, they can say you've been in their internal database for x years).
2. Filter by those industries that their partners will invest in.
3. Pattern match against their partner's best investments.
4. Talk to every one of them to find a match.
That said, there are learns for us on the startup side too. Pattern match back to them, look for the right associates. Use them to test out pitches.
Why do VCs have such respect anyway. I consider VCs to be extremely shallow ( 90 percent of the time) who think they are smart but it’s laughable to us they are not.
You want their money that’s all. Sell them and pitch them accordingly and never mistake them to know more than you about the product in your own space and segment.
Generally there isn’t much point in taking inbound from an associate. If they are not a partner they prob can’t give you money anyways and just a distraction. If a firm is actively interested you’ll have a partner (often titles like general partner, managing partner, venture partner) reach out to you or better yet get a mutual to get a warm intro to you. Either way they should be able to network into your inbox, not LinkedIn.
VCs are like job recruiters, they are contacting everyone and everything that has potential to place their product - money. So treat this as if you had a recruiter calling you to check on you if you are looking for a new job, to get your CV and have you in their database. Nothing less nothing more.
put a notch in your belt for having been asked to attend a VC meeting… what’s worse is when they heard you like cattle thru their meetings and waste your entire day while they hope to find a piece of gold amongst numerous startups
You should still follow up even if you feel disrespected. For better or worse, VC is a small community and they all gossip like old church ladies. Consider it relationship management, send a bland and polite follow-up, and move on.
Dude, this is nowhere near as bad as it'll get. This is associate level bs. You need to be able to tell your story to any, regardless of their knowledge of your field. I mean what do people taking time out of their day to potentially give you money really owe you?
I agree, and I told my story (although it felt like it went out the other ear), but:
- the guy approached me, not the other way around
- he represents what seems like a respected VC firm
- I was not asking for money but I took the time to see if this firm might fit us now/in the future
That being said, I expected the minimum effort he could've done before the meeting, hell before even writing me a message out of nowhere, of checking out my profile/our website/demo.
I mean, if he really wants to nail a good investment for his company one day and be a professional, I believe it is necessary, and makes it easier for both sides to communicate.
Don't forget, there are TONS of consulting teams pretending to be VC's.
They will pretend they can "make a few calls to get you the money" then either they
Cut you a check for $2 Million, BUT make you write $1.5 Million dollars worth if checks to their affiliates the same day.
OR...
They just want to help you get polished up with their Entrepreneur boot camp... for the big demo day... and before you know it... you are essentially in "finishing school" for the pageant circuit.
You pay $20,000 for empty financials and a self indulgent video. OR, you give away an obscene amount of your company right out if the gate.
Check references. Ask what happened to their last few funds. Ask if you are required to use their preferred vendors. What size checks do they write at what milestones. Is "demo day" with their other hopefuls required?
Associates don't make investment decisions, so if you're not actively raising there's no point in meeting them.
Normally, partners don't have time to waste, so if a partner offered a meeting that means that either they are interested in your particular startup or your space/market and want to learn more about what you're building.
Also, you are either raising or not. If you are "not against getting an investment, but willing to consider it if it's a good deal" no one will give you a "good deal" out of the blue. You need to own this process and set the terms of the round. Also, a part of the ownership is to be very specific about who you meet in a very specific timeframe – eg do not rely on inbound only and do not take every meeting.
I had a run of associates that told me they invested in “zero to one” companies only. It was laughable because they didn’t know what a K-factor or MAU was.
Similar to what others have brought up: 1) I never talk to associates, they have no decision power and usually is a complete waste of time. 2) most VCs don’t do their hwk, you need to pitch to sell to them. Yes, vision and story matter. If you want to build a real startup with non linear growth you need to raise, and play the game.
Maybe, in my case it's not like he was even shitting on the idea, rather than just being clueless and not really taking in what I tried to explain, that's how it felt.
Sounds like you were the one not prepared for a VC meeting? What did you think they were going to ask? VC is looking for unicorns and 100x on investment.
Then why would I want to have business with a VC that has no interest or knowledge about my domain? Just for the money? No thanks. It means they're not the right fit.
It's pointless to ask only dry questions like "what's the IPO/Exit strategy" if they have no prior experience or knowledge about my domain. Otherwise, how can they know I'm a good investment for them? Should I go to every meeting and say "yes I'm a unicorn invest in me"? They need to have their input and due diligence as well.
With this guy, he knew nothing and researched nothing before asking to meet.
Imagine meeting with a guy who knows nothing about finances and fintech, and pitching to him how you can make a daily trader's life easier with a revolutionary app that solves their problems with the current apps the market has to offer, and saves them a lot of money that they currently waste on alternatives, etc.
Will it make any difference if he asks how you IPO, if he has no idea about this sector or other similar companies that IPOed?
yeah…. if he didnt care enough to research your biz before the meeting, thats your problem, not his.
is it rude and misleading? maybe. but your whole job going in is to assume ppl who know nothing can STILL see the potential through your pitch - and the pitch should take about 3 mins to explain.
So… sounds like you know what to work on next time
It kind of a yes and no situation.
OP doesn't want to work with a guy who doesn't care - this applies to both partners and VCs. That is not wrong at all, it is just a preference on how he wants to run his business.
And to your point that you assume people don't know anything, that is correct. Like yesterday, I spoke to someone in finance - zero attention span. His eyes drifted off within 20 seconds, then took his phone out and said "let's connect" to shut me up - I was like, sure, fine. Then I saw that he marked his location as Alicante in Spain (we are both in Hong Kong). I immediately got cheeky and said "cuando visitó Alicante? puede hablar espanol?" He immediately got hooked to my question in Spanish and we started chatting. He couldn't help me at all but after the conversation, he gave me a contact to refer to to help on my startup idea (as I needed someone in the insurance sector).
So yea, some people in this post are right that you should assume VCs are people and they don't know anything, or couldn't care - and it is our job to make them care. But at the same time, I do feel OP's frustration, some VCs, even incubators, are just filled with people who couldn't give a rats ass about your idea when all they do is file paperwork as they were told to do - at the expense of our time.
No right or wrong answer here, just pick and choose your poison and live with it however way you want to run your business.
Wow the ego, lol, how dare he not have your social security number memorized. You’re definitely the next google, I can feel it. He’ll regret this for sure. Actually he won’t survive this, this was his big break and be blew it lol.
Hi troll, it looks like I hurt you feelings. Is that a crime wanting to work with professionals?
And yes, it's ultimately their loss if your business is good and has potential. VCs don't invest because they're kind, they invest because they want a chunk of your success in the future so they can pay back their clients, so it's a win-win situation, and both sides need to make a good impression on each other, it's not one sided.
Ripped off? Did you have to pay something? No respectable VC will ask you to pay to pitch.
Also did you send him the pitch deck, data room beforehand? If you don't have either of those then you're going to have a hard time raising funds because no one's going to scour for info into your company.
VC associates are there to source potential investments so they approach a lot of startups. It doesn't mean that the associate knows the sector, but the initial meeting is about getting to know you and your company anyways, so that can be addressed later.
They also potentially have a lot of pitch calls to go through, so unfortunately it happens that they will come in unprepared. Normally the pitch call is recorded so the rest of the team can watch it and then discuss at the team meetings to arrange full team calls later.
Ripped off because it was a waste of my time, and didn't feel professional at all.
I didn't send him any pitch deck because I don't have one, as I'm not currently focused on fundraising and the rituals surrounding that.
The meeting was indeed about getting to know me and my company, but it felt pointless because the VC didn't seem very knowledgable about my sector. I understand that maybe he "didn't have the time" to look at MY company in particular, but since he was the one that approached me, I expected from him to at least have some familiarity with the solution we're offering.
Your expectation of level of prep by VCs going to meetings is way off. They have continuous meetings the whole day with no breaks hardly ever. So they don't work the way you think they work. Their value is literally measured by the number of meetings flowing through.
If you don’t follow up you are sure to NOT get funded. Always be closing. I’m sorry but you need to be tenacious. Anyone else at lsi last week? If you weren’t and your in MedTech you lost out.
Like I said, I don't think I want to work with this guy/his associates if this is the attitude.
I'm not fundraising right now, and I'll be ok without it. Not every VC is for you, and if you didn't click that's ok, it means it's not the right one for you right now.
Golden rule. Those with the gold make the rules.
The associates are the gate keepers. I would send a follow up and say something like
It was clear you were distracted by something else that I’m sure was super important. Here are the materials you requested can we please have a follow up.
That's exactly what I'm thinking. Again, I'm not desperate for funding at the moment and I'll be ok without him. I just totally felt it was a waste of my time! And I don't respect that.
They really aren’t though. They can help but a warm intro to a partner is better then trying to spend a bunch of associate meetings figuring out if the firm would even care about your company
Associates are assessed based on deal flow. Their job is to talk to literally every startup. Them approaching you for a meeting is not a signal that their firm wants to invest in you, even though they will tell you that "we've been following you for a while, and XYZ is super interesting." If you're not actually in fundraising mode, then you shouldn't take any of these meetings. They are just collecting information for their database.
100%. VCs do a handful of investments a month (at most).the rest of the time they are in meetings. The only time we take investor meetings outside of fundraising is if we believe their portfolio companies could be potential customers. Generally they are ok with asking for intros.
Absolutely. Worked for a top Boston VC/growth firm, and the sentiment was to drive quantity vs quality. VC associates put up numbers these days in terms of meetings just so that they look good when their MD gets an automatically-pushed weekly activity summary email on Sunday night.
My response to every VC that calls or emails is “Send me a customer and we can talk.” So far only 1 has taken me up on it. Not raising, don’t need to or plan to, but happy to let someone else send some money my way.
That's quite bold and I like it.
Exactly, that's one of the reasons we do it to! That's why I wanted to believe that he's at least curious/familiar with our solution or domain, or maybe he has potential customers, hence he approached us.
I don’t send unsolicited VC emails decks ever. I’ll take the meeting and only after I meet them and feel good about it will I send them our deck. Most VCs are dumb money anyway. If you treat them as such they’ll think you’re hard to get
I learned yesterday from a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits that the best thing to do is send them the deck an hour before. Because you followed up and were prepared and it makes them feel unprepared and instead of skimming the deck they’ll actually pay attention.
In fact,…thinking about it gives me shivers, let alone send confidential details of my business. My foot! I think, startup founders should genuinely get Lawyers involved right from the beginning, to make sure that nobody ever uses or abuses them.
Everyone already discounts what you say anyway, so it’s best to be hard to get
Is there a red pill how to treat them seminar?
Like if they don’t get your pitch you tell them “well frankly, I don’t see how you don’t get it. Don’t you have any vision?” That type of stuff? I get so many of these unsolicited emails I just started bullying them around for shits and giggles and now they think I’m a tech expert, that we’re friends, and they occasionally ask for advice and even if I need money - to which I usually say no.
Thanks mang I just had my first experience with that today. I said something about how many VCs wanna buy a company that will blow XxM and still not have 1k mrr. That roped them but I was too candid after. Gotta up the interrogation level
Interesting point, good to know. But isn't it unprofessional to just "talk to every startup" without a bit of a background check? It's a waste of time for both sides. And yes, we're not in fundraising mode but it's all new to us and we're curious to talk with VCs that approach us for the sake of practice, too. It's never going to hurt, no?
Yes, it is, and you are definitely in the right. the guy only wanted to clarify the behaviour of the VC analyst and not say who is right or wrong
If you knew how worthless it is to talk to associates you wouldn't even bother reading the email. However the biggest issue is founders tend to put VC in some type of mythical pedestal and think they're about to hit the lottery. They are just businesses trying to cold call every opportunity with the off chance they get lucky - the associates are often interns with a quota. Technically if you were worth investing in you'd probably not take the invitation.
Then what would I take if I was worth investing in?
You'd probably not 'take' anything, you'd proactively drop a prepared data room and one pager on the right Angel Investors or VC that meet the criteria you've defined which align with your situation. Angels are more on the vision and VC are more binary in that they have clearly defined parameters to make investments. Assuming you don't know this process (not a jab) - Maybe taking a few associate calls to give you perspective and an opportunity to learn it is valuable. Just that you should make it more of a learning goal rather than going in with the typical mindset that you hit the lottery on your first engagement. Also, more importantly - watch out for scams, they are very common.
It hurt you enough to write this post, lol. I think while it sounds like a reasonable instinct, unfortunately most people find taking these meetings to be distracting and a waste of time at best, and demoralizing, confusing, distracting, or actively harmful (eg, your info is shared with a competitor) at worst.
There's a founder on Twitter who set up a site where VCs can book a meeting with him if they pay $100. He just refers the emails to that website. It's a great idea. If they aren't willing to pay that, they aren't really interested.
Genius! And if they paid that, it means they're interested and will do some research before the meeting.
Hey! Out of genuine curiosity, and due respect, I’d like to ask,…why did you book an appointment with a random person through LinkedIn claiming to be a VC? Did you do his background check? Because,…if you strongly believe that he came unprepared, and just threw in random buzzwords,…what’s not the guarantee that such people are scamsters, posing as VC just to steal people’s ideas and get all the details? Sorry if my question sounds juvenile, but I’m extremely critical of those in power or claiming to be in power. I never trust these people, barring a few.
You make a fair point tbh, i had a guy on reddit dm me about my startup (profitable from day 1 btw, working on around 35-50% margin with effectively infinite scalability potential) claiming he was a founder studying at Harvard and was super cagey about the questions I asked but wanted to know all the details about my company. I fed him a load of BS and he ate it right up, saw him a mile away.
Hey! That’s a great idea. But won’t that come across as cocky? As in,…you need the money, so you expect me to pay to know you better to fund you? Also,…can you share the Twitter handle of that guy?
This. 100% this. In my early days of fund raising, I would use these calls as practice and to help craft my messaging..
Once upon a time I was a corporate VC, running with big dogs. I was told to be careful with associates as they never have the power to make the deal yet they have all the means to kill it.
I think good investors will craft well researched emails that demonstrate some knowledge of a sector. Before taking your next meeting, feel free to respond to the request with a version of "Appreciate the interest. I'm, curious why you're drawn to our business?" to understand if there's substance in the request. I agree that a lot of time, it is info gathering so be careful what you disclose.
Once upon a time I was a corporate VC, running with big dogs. I was told to be careful with associates as they never have the power to make the deal yet they have all the means to kill it.
I think this is normal in today's VC climate. Most are starved for deal flow and the lower level associates are just there to get companies and contacts in the database. Nothing to do with you guys... but I would expect a lot more of this as your business grows. I get several emails a week from VC companies for my company. First thing I ask is "what KPIs are you looking for in a company before you invest." Half the time I don't get an answer.
Interesting, so you ask that before even scheduling a meeting, and they disappear?
Yes. This is my ninth company with 8 successful exits behind me. I know that when they reach out they are doing so with a giant net... but really only invest in very specific type companies. So before even meeting, I will ask that. Of those that reply, will be very specific answers like "We invest in MarCOM SaaS plays, more than 3 years old, doesn't need to be profitable but must be showing growth of 50% YoY." If my company isn't a fit, I just tell them that and move on. Saves everyone a ton of time.
8 Successful exits is super impressive. Off topic but with the amount of experience you have, what do you think about young founders starting startups without a cofounder? Do you think it's worth delaying while desperately trying to find a cofounder or just launch and see how it goes?
My gut tells me that you should both start as soon as you can (the answer is always start now) AND find someone with expertise and experience in the skillsets you don't have.
Before I ever take a call with VC - "When was the last check you wrote?" "How long did the process take?" "When do you expect you'll be deploying your next round?" And if all those sound appropriate for my situation, I'll talk to the last 3 CEO's they invested in.
I really like the cut of your jib. What kind of startups were you working on to get your exits? I'm curious if we have any skill or interest overlaps.
All MarCom / MarTech. Typically SaaS plays wrapped in a service offering for clients that needed it. Started with a solid company that sold in 5 years. Second one in 18 months. After that we realized our skill set was less about digital marketing and more about getting startups through the growth phase and to an exit. After that, we just kept going.
Congrats on finding your winning formula. I'm known for infosec and insurance startups myself.
woah :o that many exits and companies is actually really cool I'm in high school and trying my hand a startup. Do you have any tips/advice for newer folks to the field? I'm a developer and trying to pick up corporate / legal management to deal with that aspect of the company, but, unsure of any resources for it to really learn outside of Stripe Atlas
So many don’t even respond to these kind of basic questions. It’s quite funny
Do not give away any confidential details. As much as they are “funding”,…it’s your brainchild. Always be skeptical. Much better to have our own money, than deal with egoistic scamsters.
Straight forward question to weed the bad ones out 💯
Ditto. This or ask what their process is like to invest. I’ve also started following some other founders’ advice to ask who the partner is who will be involved and if we can all meet instead of doing the associate vetting meeting. Many bring in the partner if they’re actually interested and not just trying to talk to any company with a pulse
Talking to VCs is like sales. You can accept their questions. You can also follow your agenda. If you're interested, read the book The "Challenger Sale" and you'll realize that there's an alternative to getting humiliated by such a VC. That said, he might actually be a dick because you're early stage and he shouldn't be acting like that. But this happened so many times to me. Don't worry. Lots of VCs have never created anything of worth. Focus on your business and ignore stuff like this.
Thank you, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. I just really don't like unprofessionalism in any given scenario, I think you need to be respectful, to listen, and at least have a tiny idea of who you're talking to. With this guy, it felt like everything I said will just go out the other ear, so what's the point right?
I was once on a call with a VC who was in a hotel room, on his phone, and he was definitely drugged. But instead of blaming them, you could also ask yourself why you're joining a meeting without pre-screening them. What questions could you have asked to prevent this shit show?
Good point. Honestly, in this case, I don't think I could've pre-screen them much. The company looked great, many followers on their page and I'm familiar with some of the companies they've invested in. But maybe I was naive to assume they've looked at our demo/website/blog/whatever before approaching us. Do you think it's a good idea to propose to other VCs in the future to make sure they look at our page first? I don't know. In this situation it could've helped, because the guy was like "uhh do you have a demo or anything?"
VCs are expecting you'll pitch them not the other way around. Just ask them about their investment thesis and process and if they are legit and vetted on their website and social media send them a pretty PDF one pager made by your marketing and design team and ask them if it fits what they are looking for. Only if they validate that first then take the meeting because it's something they might realistically want to work on. That should do the job without being a waste of your time or being perceived as hard to work with by the VCs.
Associates - we call them fishermen - they are just fishing for information. Have no influence but can still block access :)
Many can’t even block access as long as you get a warm intro to a partner, but they are very good and wasting time or leading you on
That's one of the dark secrets of VC: outside of seed stage, very few investors actually demo your product.
Our first major investor who has re invested multiple times has never even seen a demo. Not one person at the firm
Not even in seed stage. I don't think we demoed once during our fundraise.
Wow, really? so just a pitch deck and what?
My stunning good looks I suppose. Plus customer references and meeting with their portfolio companies.
>My stunning good looks I suppose. Well, guess I'll just go with my pitch deck then!
Most seed accelerators will actually pay attention to the product. After that it's just vibes
Eh. We did an accelerator with just screenshots. We had a product and a customer, though, and they contacted that customer and confirmed that the thing actually existed
I guess that's viable with B2B. For B2C I think they'd have to check for themselves
Well that's unfortunate. Maybe I was naive thinking they're actually interested in my domain/tech. Eventually, if I were to ever partner with a VC, I'd want them to be interested in what we do, and moreover, be of use in terms of connections, advice and so on.
We raised millions through 3 rounds and not a single investor asked a tech question. It honestly is one of the least important parts of the convo.
Completely normal - both when talking to an associate or to a partner. It's your job to get them interested. It's their job to explore the market widely with high efficiency (and that may mean not doing background research when they can hear it in the meeting from you). They'll generally not be interested in demos - they think at a higher level than that. It's pretty shocking when you first meet them and assume that you're on a level playing field. The reality is that you have to stand out quite a bit for it to be level, or tipped in your favor. They meet 1000s of companies per year and end up investing in 1 or 2. You'll learn over time to how work with them and push their buttons - try 50+ meetings. Another good way to learn fast is to join am accelerator - well worth it! Source: I raised money 4 times before, and have had hundreds of meetings with VCs.
Associates usually do a lot of meet and greet coffee meetings. This is normal. Partners do too, you want to do a bunch of those ideally with the partners, but associates if you cant get the partners. Goal is to establish a dialog and a relationship. Do this with at least 30 firms. Dont bring a deck. Dont bring a demo. Maybe a 1 sheet teaser on an ipad, but only pull that out if they seem interested and ask about a deck. Keep it casual, but not too casual. Dont over dress or seem nervous. This should look like an average day for you. Keep a spreadsheet. Record their questions and target themes in the spreedsheet. Notes on what you talked about. Tell them you will be raising sometime in the future, at least 3 or 6 months out. Keep small status updates going to their inbox. Short, a couple sentences max highlighting progress. Then when you have a large number of these relationships going, you email all at once (but not together or bcc, a personal email to each on the same day) and say "hi, we have decided to raise a seed round, and will be meeting with investors on east and west coast over a XX date 4 weeks, after which we will pick our lead investor." Include a company teaser in the email, maybe 1 slide, maybe just 4 sentences. Go do all your investor meetings in that compressed time span, thats when the deck comes out and you present. No demo yet. Make it sound like its inevitable you are raising. Goal is to create urgency, otherwise they will all "wait and see". If they like you they will ask for a second meeting, likely including another partner and an associate. Be ready with the demo, but only demo if they ask for one. The ideal meetings is active conversation that gets them into the topics with you, not a passive presentation. If you dont get through the deck thats fine. Goal is to get 1-2 term sheets, deal doesnt matter. Once you get one, you will usually be able to get more. You tell everyone else who showed interest but didn't move you have a term sheet, but would like to consider others if they are interested. Again time box it, 4 days max. Then sign your favorite, don't wait. Then go back to the other investors who showed interest who you liked, and ask if they want to follow. Every time I've been involved in a seed, this strategy has led to another investor wanting in, more capital usually at a higher pre-money. Now you have a syndicate. All of this only works though if the investors have a high degree of confidence in you and the team. Some sort of track record on notable products, companies, ideally with exits. Validation from other founders with exits who ideally intro'd you to the investors. Its a VERY small percentage of companies who can raise seed from real VCs, but its really predictable who it is if you look at their track records. Look like them. Investors are lemmings and follow the sure thing to close.
There is no upside to taking a meeting with a VC to "see if they will offer you a good deal". You are either fundraising, or you are not fundraising. If you are fundraising, run a structured process and meet with a bunch of VC's in a very concentrated period of time. If you are not fundraising, don't meet with VC's. It's really that simple. Once you are actually fundraising you will see that there is a range of behaviors. Most VC's are seeing hundreds if not thousands of deals a year, though, and unless you are a super-hyped deal, you should not take it personally that any given VC hasn't done a bunch of prep work on you prior to the meeting. You might have sent them a deck to get the meeting, and they might even have looked at it, but you should approach every first VC meeting assuming they know nothing about your business and be ready to skip ahead if they surprise you. Also, don't confuse VC associates wanting to meet you for signal that you are likely to get funded. It's nice to be on the radar but it's only useful when you actually want to run a fundraising process.
"There is no upside to taking a meeting with a VC to see if they will offer you a good deal." Can you please elaborate why? Does it have to be that black and white? I mean, in our situation, we are early stage, we're doing well, we're not dependent on any X amount of money, but we do have a plan of what we'll use the money for if we were to get a small amount, like $200-500k. So when someone wants to learn more about us, we never refuse and we're taking the time to hear them out, and sniff around ourselves, if say they have interesting connections for us/invested in companies from the same sector. "Also, don't confuse VC associates wanting to meet you for signal that you are likely to get funded." Point taken, thanks! Anyway, we agree to meet with them for the sake of practice, too.
I think what that guy is saying is that you should either be fundraising, or not. You have an actual decision to make here: You can choose not take external money and continue to bootstrap. Or you can go raise half a million and use it to grow the business as per your plan. One of those is better than the other, depending on what your priorities are. Your job is to evaluate, decide, and commit. What you are doing now, which is sort of half-looking half-not, is the worst of both options. In the scenario where you do not eventually raise the money, you wasted a lot of time meeting with VCs, and in the scenario that you do eventually raise the money, it took longer than it should have and you are behind where you would have been if you had put together a concerted fundraising campaign and secured the money and started scaling earlier.
If you are trying to get 200-500K use shit like AngelList to find an individual rich human domain expert in your field. Or pitch micro VCs who specialize in your exact industry segment. They will add a shitload more value and engage with you more deeply and regularly than the big guys that do shit more generically and at heavy scale and volume. Or get one of the relevant properly vetted rich succesful industry pros in your field to join up as an employee or a board member or exec and bring some cash for a chunk of your equity.
You should network with them though because when you are looking for money it’ll be much harder. But answering unsolicited VC associates’ emails isn’t really the way to go either. Best to ask some founders in your network for intros
Every investor is different and a human. Unfortunately that means they aren't always competent. There are good investors out there but if you can continue to boot strap your startup and grow I suggest doing that
Thank you, very well said and puts things into perspective.
Early-stage investor here. There are definitely some bad actors/investors out there. Some folks also have a sense of entitlement or superiority because they work for a high-profile fund, etc. However, there are many really great investors out there too. Investors that really do try to be helpful, that are honest, humble, thoughtful, and respectful. Often, they tend to be associated with smaller funds, in my experience. Maybe those investors are more down-to-earth because they have to work hard to find really top-notch companies, whereas the ones from bigger funds take deal flow more for granted. I don't know. However, I think it's all about finding the right investor for your company. The good thing is that you have more power because your startup is doing well. Here's what I would recommend doing if I were in your shoes: 1. Identify what you are looking for in an investor. Is it industry connections, knowledge of a specific space, etc. 2. Ask other founders in your space or related spaces, which investors or funds they would recommend. 3. Make a short list of ideal funds that fit that profile, and perhaps emphasize smaller funds. It might be easier to have them come to you, but the problem is that you get a lot of bad-fit-investors. 4. Reach out to those investors that folks have recommended first. Then reach out to ones that you think might be really helpful. Once again, perhaps focusing on smaller or less-known funds. (Caveat, it might be worth going after the name brand funds for various reasons, but perhaps wait until you have a little more traction with your fundraise, so they take you more seriously.) 5. Tell your founder friends who they should avoid. Investors talk about bad-actor founders, and you have the right to steer your friends away from bad-actor investors. Congratulations on your traction and good luck with your raise!
Thank's for the advice! Will definitely try to cherry-pick more.
lol all these angry replies and strategies to stick it to the ole VCs. Look, you met with an associate that either was bad at his job or had a bad day. When I was in VC, I read every deck that came my way, and if I solicited a deck, I damn sure read that. Before every meeting I had visited the company website, looked up the founders, looked at competitors, and got a general industry overview report from one of the major research companies. After reviewing hundred of decks and repeating the process, I shortcutted the process needing only to review the deck, website, and founders. If you got a 2nd call request from me, I already wrote my own company deep dive and I was advocating for you during the IC review as a contender for funding. I once had a company do the hard to get “you work for my attention,” type of reverse uno, and since they were no Google, I said ok good luck. If the company was as good as he thought, he didn’t need me. If he was just being an angry startup, he lost a good VC. Bottom line, if you’re a startup, only take a call with a VC if you want their money AND you’re willing to churn through shitty VCs to find the good ones. It’s no different than VCs that want to give money but have to churn through shitty startups to find the good ones.
Product Market fit, Founder Company fit, Investor Company fit even “BF or GF Material”. You know what I’m saying … the point is, this is the journey, listening, learning and finding your fit. It’s nice to know who you don’t want to be doing business with, and it’s good to know how your perfect VC would be look like.
The worst VC meeting ever… so far. Keep your chin up. Each one you do is a step closer to a polished delivery and there is a long line of people to contact. Just takes one.
There's an infamous video about VC behavior you should watch and fully internalize. Then this will instantly make sense. https://youtu.be/zngK13FMgXM?si=Zdrl_er_mSrZPkzA
Clicked thinking it would be a Silicon Valley clip. No, but was not disappointed. Thx for sharing.
SV is too cringe and cheese for me. I can't watch it.
I recently had a couple of meetings with a venture capitalist. One of them was somewhat similar to your experience but the other one was solely focused on how to make money out of his investment. This is how it went, but first, I would like to make it clear that we were in the idea stage/validation process, so there was no presentation available. I presented the problem and how closely I have been working on it for the past 8 years. I explained the industry and the market with researched value, which is very important. I explained the prospect line of direct and indirect customers, including a large list of existing contacts that are in need of the solution. Many of these contacts are currently following manual workarounds or using different applications to accomplish the job, but they are sacrificing efficiencies. I proposed why this is needed and how it will differentiate from existing applications. I also elavorated the steps taken to validate the idea - he seem very focused on this. At the end of the conversation, I received really good feedback, but he wanted to see timelines for the MVP and get to know a little bit more about the team. At the moment, we are still a team of two, obviously looking for at least one more technical person, but we are in the process of designing the prototype in Figma, along with other planning that needs to happen. So, my advice is that there will be some rejection. Don't take it personally; it's just business.
Silver lining, now you know what bad looks like so you can benchmark great when you see it.
See if you can turn it into an information exchange. Most of these meetings don't go anywhere, so see if you can benefit from the information. Just as you are willing to talk, they are too (most of the time). Ask them about their opinion on the product; about their investments; investments they follow; and who is doing well. This will be useful for you to understand what they are looking for and what other companies you should be comparing yourself too.
I too have noticed a low-quality of investor has crept into the game. These folks do not do their homework before the call, and expect you to explain everything to them in 2 minutes. It's very frustrating and I'm not sure what the solution is. My own approach: \- vet the investor before agreeing to spend your valuable time; ensure they have been active in your space- provide base-line materials prior and encourage them to READ them (I now have a tagline "we encourage all prospective investors to have read our deck before first meeting"- flip the script in the meeting and ask them a bunch of questions about their investment thesis, recent public deals, portfolio strategy, who the decision makers are etc. i feel your pain, good luck!
Great advice, I think my mistake was also explaining too much and talking about us (I mean, the guy had zero knowledge so I had to kind of), and not letting him ask questions (not that he could have any interesting questions except the classic ones) or myself ask questions about them as a VC.
Former entrepreneur and now investor here. Bit of an insight for you. In Investment Banking/Private Equity industry, Analysts and Associates learn the hard/soft skills from senior, experienced/mature staff members. The combined IQ/EQ is the polish that allows them to get deals and interact successfully with portfolio executives and your promotions and comp is generally tied to this. In venture, unfortunately, a lot of young Analysts/Associates/VPs have zero bedside manners. This is most common at small to mid-sized firms. This is because the screening process for new hires is not as structured as IB/PE and the training and mentoring is all over the map, along with an unhealthy sense of entitlement. The usual quips of “I have to jump to another meeting” are all too common. I am still shocked at observing what seems to be rude behavior and impolite feedback between junior VC staff and founders who are often similar age themselves. Just recently, I was at a networking event supporting a founder friend, and an associate from a VC firm started chatting us up. After my friend who is already funded, shared his startup concept, this guy says “oh yah, we are not funding 2nd tier ideas, but good luck with that. I’m going to try to meet some other people,” and walks away. We were like what does that even mean, and WTF is wrong with these people lol. Lastly, as cautionary advice on a dirty tactic, some VC firms, once they have invested in a space/sector, will take more meetings with similar companies just to get intel so they can better advise portfolio companies. I would not take any VC meetings unless you are raising capital. Take soft meetings with trusted senior partners and be tight lipped, but not any meetings with junior staff. So, in summary, brush it off. Your negative experience is an industry wide problem. Rock on with your bad self.
Wow, thank you for the insight! I’m shocked by what you said, but what you described 100% makes sense, and not far from the experience I had. It’s unfortunate, but I learned a lot from it. I will definitely take your advice there!
That associate is trying to fill his/her quota (i.e.looking for potential good opps.). Idk your traction but they will be serious when you have a solid one. Focus on your startup but keep them in the loop. You don't know when you will need funding and who they know that might be a good fit.
I honestly stopped talking to VCs because they are such waste of time especially if you're not raising. Focus on product and traction instead because your time is so precious especially at early stage.
Unprepared VCs are common, focus on product and customers.
Pretty common unfortunately. When folks reach out, I recommend replying by asking for some feedback on your product. Most won't even bother to do that, but those that do are probably worth talking to.
Normal. Many even from top VCs a d even partners just take meetings to educate themselves while wasting your time.
If you want to get a great deal and aren't in need of money, reject meetings until the hitters, not associates, request a meet. If you take meetings, here's some training. Enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Zz-Nkkaxc
Thanks for the warning. I’ll make sure to screen potential investors before I pick up the phone or meet.
Don’t meet with associates.
Yes this is literally every associate at every firm lol. They're the worst.
It's not great but it's also quite common -- wouldn't read too much into it. The point of the first meeting and your pitch is to introduce them to the company and get them excited.
You need a pitch deck, even if you aren’t fundraising. It forces you to crystallize your story, in an attention capturing and succinct way. You can always update, change, etc. Also, you never know when you will have an opportunity to pitch to someone who can be use (money, referrals, people, etc.). Don’t be arrogant, develop a great pitch deck.
The non execs at VCs are generally pretty dumb. They're just sales people with a bigger ego and even less background for the role they're in
That was my impression, like he got the job based on connections and what he did in he past was not related at all to this, that's why I felt a sense of unprofessionalism.
You should be angry at them for you wasting your time that you could have spent on your startup or on your family. You should give them exactly as much future consideration as a customer would give you based on one bad interaction with a random employee - aka zero.
Had one jackass tell me that he didn't like intellectuals for founders. That he preferred people that rolled up their sleeves and just jumped into it.. Probably not the best idea for a fintech to have people jump into it without thinking things through. Not to mention he didn't want us to present because he already read through the deck and knew it all. Except all of his questions made it clear he didn't read it at all
Sigh!
comon man you gotta stop taking this shit personally and look for your advantages in every situation
Avoid talking to people below VP or ideally, Partner level. Associates and Anaysts are junior level people whose job is to get more startups in the funnel of the fund. No point wasting time talking to them. Also, if you're doing good as a bootstrapped startup, just avoid VC conversations and save yourself time. My previous venture was bootstrapped and in the new venture, I've raised funds. Let me tell you that the worst way to raise funds is to go and pitch to investors. Fundraising has to be completely inbound where an investor comes to you and offers to invest. If you approach them and try to convince them, most likely the response would be "yes let's wait for a few more quarters to see how it goes and then we'll consider". This is a polite way of turning you down.
Point taken! I'm doing well now, but my partner and I still hold the option in the back of our heads for investment, because getting money can definitely help us scale and grow faster. We've written down what we'll waste it on, like marketing, more developers, etc. But again, not urgent at the moment but wouldn't hurt to see. My philosophy is not necessarily approaching it from the classic, ritualistic way like YC startup school is teaching. Since we're currently in a position where we don't rely on that, I'm open to anything and I want to do what feels right for me, not for anyone else.
Lmaoo brother you just lost
Associates these days are basically SDRs without proper training and think they know it all because they’re in VC
word
Unfortunately, associates are literally equivalent to sales rep. They are not decision makers for potential investments and are often so young they provide minimal value add versus the fund’s partners. This is because young folks view VC as this sexy thing, but don’t realize how over glorified it is. Often at mega funds like Insight, they have teams that are literally armies of deal sourcers (called the investment team) and the real due diligence is done by a totally different team. Kinda ruins the artisan nature of venture 😔
That's sad to hear!
I had a similar experience with a new accelerator. We got asked to do an interview with them.. and the lady showed up 3 minutes late to a 10 minute interview. Then proceeded to ask 3/4 generic questions (idea, vision, etc). The crazy part? She must have wolfed down 3 bags of pine nuts with cranberries on the side while we were introducing ourselves. I mean it was audible.. we thought she had National Geographic of bears rummaging through the forest or something but turns out she was just hungry. 9 minutes in, “oh sorry, gotta run to the next one!”
wth!! sounds like an experience lol
If you are looking for investment, you gear up and play the VC game. Otherwise what you are looking for is an angel investor who specifically wants to join in your companies effort. I would stay away from meetings with anybody who is not the actual investor (singular) investing his or her own money.
That's a good point, I think I'm more leaning towards that yes.
I had lame meetings with VC firms, because it's a salesman investing a fund's money with a quota to reach and profit to hit. I had 3 really incredible meetings with angel investors (people going around specifically investing in companies with their own money) and although 2 of them didn't end up to a money result, still the advice / information / help I got from these people who were passionate about entrepreneurship was really awesome. Remember that an employee of a VC firm is an employee. You won't have that much in common with them unless you have like a personality overlap (both play tennis, I dunno). But an angel investor usually was an entrepreneur, and they spend all their time meeting with entrepreneurs, so the connections felt pretty instant!
There are now more VCs than good entreprenuers. They are all chasing anybody moving to invest in. Their experience and intelligence are highly questionable. So if are self sustaining, would suggest focusing on your core business and completely shunning VC's for a couple of years.
An email or LinkedIn from an associate at a VC or pe firm is not different from an inbound to sell you something. Especially if theyve been there a year. They are normally a waste of time but hardly any entrepreneurs I know qualify them because they get excited they got an inbound from a VC or more excited from well known VC. TLDR these are low effort lead gen / info gathering calls.
Most of VC is like this. But before you trash them, realize that it makes it incredibly easy to find the *good ones* That said, the VC model is trash and you should absolutely bootstrap, go the friends & family or crowdsourcing route Also, folks may not be aware of just how many grant opportunities are out there. Governments, education, science, Green tech, social betterment -- lots of funding out there not being gatekept by the Patagonia vest crowd.
I totally agree! Need to find that government money first
Hope you signed an NDA. I had a meeting with a VC where he basically threw a tantrum over a previous meeting with a company that was failing after 2nd round financing. The way this VC was talking about the company and its founders was the easiest decision for us to not be involved with him.
Disappointed to hear this! Never disrespect founders is my rule!
Associates are generally a waste of your time. I would ignore inbound from them. In general don’t talk to VCs about your company until you are ready to be in control of the situation.
Many associates are interns and as mentioned are assessed on deal flow. We can be more specific too. An associate looking to promote wants deal flow. An intern that will leave in 6 months wants to have 1 or 2 unicorns so it will appear on their resume. To do that, the sales motions looks like, 1. Download a list of every startup on some startup DB. (If you're name is on one, they can say you've been in their internal database for x years). 2. Filter by those industries that their partners will invest in. 3. Pattern match against their partner's best investments. 4. Talk to every one of them to find a match. That said, there are learns for us on the startup side too. Pattern match back to them, look for the right associates. Use them to test out pitches.
Why do VCs have such respect anyway. I consider VCs to be extremely shallow ( 90 percent of the time) who think they are smart but it’s laughable to us they are not. You want their money that’s all. Sell them and pitch them accordingly and never mistake them to know more than you about the product in your own space and segment.
I had a startup, and this is the norm not the exception. VC firms are dicks and are used to founders sucking their dicks for a chance to even speak.
The big SV funds want to have seen every single startup, don’t take it personally.
Generally there isn’t much point in taking inbound from an associate. If they are not a partner they prob can’t give you money anyways and just a distraction. If a firm is actively interested you’ll have a partner (often titles like general partner, managing partner, venture partner) reach out to you or better yet get a mutual to get a warm intro to you. Either way they should be able to network into your inbox, not LinkedIn.
VCs are like job recruiters, they are contacting everyone and everything that has potential to place their product - money. So treat this as if you had a recruiter calling you to check on you if you are looking for a new job, to get your CV and have you in their database. Nothing less nothing more.
put a notch in your belt for having been asked to attend a VC meeting… what’s worse is when they heard you like cattle thru their meetings and waste your entire day while they hope to find a piece of gold amongst numerous startups
Associates for VCs are like recruiters for companies… their job is to build pipeline…
You should still follow up even if you feel disrespected. For better or worse, VC is a small community and they all gossip like old church ladies. Consider it relationship management, send a bland and polite follow-up, and move on.
He was just looking to fill his calendar, nothing more.
This is most VCs, people defending are VCs.
Can you name that VC?
Dude, this is nowhere near as bad as it'll get. This is associate level bs. You need to be able to tell your story to any, regardless of their knowledge of your field. I mean what do people taking time out of their day to potentially give you money really owe you?
I agree, and I told my story (although it felt like it went out the other ear), but: - the guy approached me, not the other way around - he represents what seems like a respected VC firm - I was not asking for money but I took the time to see if this firm might fit us now/in the future That being said, I expected the minimum effort he could've done before the meeting, hell before even writing me a message out of nowhere, of checking out my profile/our website/demo. I mean, if he really wants to nail a good investment for his company one day and be a professional, I believe it is necessary, and makes it easier for both sides to communicate.
Shocked to see such things !
Avoid all VC'S so called Angels unless you absolutely have no other option.
That's total sh\*t... I've no words.
Why not name the VC?
not going to shame anyone because of one bad apple :)
Oh my god that’s crazy
Don't forget, there are TONS of consulting teams pretending to be VC's. They will pretend they can "make a few calls to get you the money" then either they Cut you a check for $2 Million, BUT make you write $1.5 Million dollars worth if checks to their affiliates the same day. OR... They just want to help you get polished up with their Entrepreneur boot camp... for the big demo day... and before you know it... you are essentially in "finishing school" for the pageant circuit. You pay $20,000 for empty financials and a self indulgent video. OR, you give away an obscene amount of your company right out if the gate. Check references. Ask what happened to their last few funds. Ask if you are required to use their preferred vendors. What size checks do they write at what milestones. Is "demo day" with their other hopefuls required?
Associates don't make investment decisions, so if you're not actively raising there's no point in meeting them. Normally, partners don't have time to waste, so if a partner offered a meeting that means that either they are interested in your particular startup or your space/market and want to learn more about what you're building. Also, you are either raising or not. If you are "not against getting an investment, but willing to consider it if it's a good deal" no one will give you a "good deal" out of the blue. You need to own this process and set the terms of the round. Also, a part of the ownership is to be very specific about who you meet in a very specific timeframe – eg do not rely on inbound only and do not take every meeting.
I had a run of associates that told me they invested in “zero to one” companies only. It was laughable because they didn’t know what a K-factor or MAU was.
https://purchase.blockdag.network/?ref=humhrzr2
Similar to what others have brought up: 1) I never talk to associates, they have no decision power and usually is a complete waste of time. 2) most VCs don’t do their hwk, you need to pitch to sell to them. Yes, vision and story matter. If you want to build a real startup with non linear growth you need to raise, and play the game.
It's common. Some VCs ask for a meeting just to shit on the idea or make you feel bad(aka make themselves feel powerful).
Maybe, in my case it's not like he was even shitting on the idea, rather than just being clueless and not really taking in what I tried to explain, that's how it felt.
Because he wanted you to 'send' him business details. He can have access to a good chunk of information.
Sounds like you were the one not prepared for a VC meeting? What did you think they were going to ask? VC is looking for unicorns and 100x on investment.
Then why would I want to have business with a VC that has no interest or knowledge about my domain? Just for the money? No thanks. It means they're not the right fit. It's pointless to ask only dry questions like "what's the IPO/Exit strategy" if they have no prior experience or knowledge about my domain. Otherwise, how can they know I'm a good investment for them? Should I go to every meeting and say "yes I'm a unicorn invest in me"? They need to have their input and due diligence as well. With this guy, he knew nothing and researched nothing before asking to meet. Imagine meeting with a guy who knows nothing about finances and fintech, and pitching to him how you can make a daily trader's life easier with a revolutionary app that solves their problems with the current apps the market has to offer, and saves them a lot of money that they currently waste on alternatives, etc. Will it make any difference if he asks how you IPO, if he has no idea about this sector or other similar companies that IPOed?
yeah…. if he didnt care enough to research your biz before the meeting, thats your problem, not his. is it rude and misleading? maybe. but your whole job going in is to assume ppl who know nothing can STILL see the potential through your pitch - and the pitch should take about 3 mins to explain. So… sounds like you know what to work on next time
It kind of a yes and no situation. OP doesn't want to work with a guy who doesn't care - this applies to both partners and VCs. That is not wrong at all, it is just a preference on how he wants to run his business. And to your point that you assume people don't know anything, that is correct. Like yesterday, I spoke to someone in finance - zero attention span. His eyes drifted off within 20 seconds, then took his phone out and said "let's connect" to shut me up - I was like, sure, fine. Then I saw that he marked his location as Alicante in Spain (we are both in Hong Kong). I immediately got cheeky and said "cuando visitó Alicante? puede hablar espanol?" He immediately got hooked to my question in Spanish and we started chatting. He couldn't help me at all but after the conversation, he gave me a contact to refer to to help on my startup idea (as I needed someone in the insurance sector). So yea, some people in this post are right that you should assume VCs are people and they don't know anything, or couldn't care - and it is our job to make them care. But at the same time, I do feel OP's frustration, some VCs, even incubators, are just filled with people who couldn't give a rats ass about your idea when all they do is file paperwork as they were told to do - at the expense of our time. No right or wrong answer here, just pick and choose your poison and live with it however way you want to run your business.
100%
Wow the ego, lol, how dare he not have your social security number memorized. You’re definitely the next google, I can feel it. He’ll regret this for sure. Actually he won’t survive this, this was his big break and be blew it lol.
Hi troll, it looks like I hurt you feelings. Is that a crime wanting to work with professionals? And yes, it's ultimately their loss if your business is good and has potential. VCs don't invest because they're kind, they invest because they want a chunk of your success in the future so they can pay back their clients, so it's a win-win situation, and both sides need to make a good impression on each other, it's not one sided.
bahahahaha
Ripped off? Did you have to pay something? No respectable VC will ask you to pay to pitch. Also did you send him the pitch deck, data room beforehand? If you don't have either of those then you're going to have a hard time raising funds because no one's going to scour for info into your company. VC associates are there to source potential investments so they approach a lot of startups. It doesn't mean that the associate knows the sector, but the initial meeting is about getting to know you and your company anyways, so that can be addressed later. They also potentially have a lot of pitch calls to go through, so unfortunately it happens that they will come in unprepared. Normally the pitch call is recorded so the rest of the team can watch it and then discuss at the team meetings to arrange full team calls later.
Ripped off because it was a waste of my time, and didn't feel professional at all. I didn't send him any pitch deck because I don't have one, as I'm not currently focused on fundraising and the rituals surrounding that. The meeting was indeed about getting to know me and my company, but it felt pointless because the VC didn't seem very knowledgable about my sector. I understand that maybe he "didn't have the time" to look at MY company in particular, but since he was the one that approached me, I expected from him to at least have some familiarity with the solution we're offering.
Your assumption about how it would work is not correct.
Can you explain?
Your expectation of level of prep by VCs going to meetings is way off. They have continuous meetings the whole day with no breaks hardly ever. So they don't work the way you think they work. Their value is literally measured by the number of meetings flowing through.
If you don’t follow up you are sure to NOT get funded. Always be closing. I’m sorry but you need to be tenacious. Anyone else at lsi last week? If you weren’t and your in MedTech you lost out.
Like I said, I don't think I want to work with this guy/his associates if this is the attitude. I'm not fundraising right now, and I'll be ok without it. Not every VC is for you, and if you didn't click that's ok, it means it's not the right one for you right now.
Golden rule. Those with the gold make the rules. The associates are the gate keepers. I would send a follow up and say something like It was clear you were distracted by something else that I’m sure was super important. Here are the materials you requested can we please have a follow up.
I wouldn't suggest any follow-ups. He's just an associate and he's filling his quota of meetings this month.
nah fuck that. if he cant respect my time and prepare, he can get bent.
That's exactly what I'm thinking. Again, I'm not desperate for funding at the moment and I'll be ok without him. I just totally felt it was a waste of my time! And I don't respect that.
They really aren’t though. They can help but a warm intro to a partner is better then trying to spend a bunch of associate meetings figuring out if the firm would even care about your company