HN Explorer

12 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 38.8 ms ] thread
themartorana
When you're playing the game of "make a single-service product, get millions of investment dollars, sell it to Facebook or Google for billions at 1000x revenue premium while still not profitable and cash out," don't be surprised that the people on the other side of the table with the actual money are playing the same high-risk long-shot maximize-output game you are. They just hold all the cards.

There's no altruism in this game.

Edit: autocorrect

fookyong
Yikes. It's statements like these that make me happy / proud to be a bootstrapped and (moderately) profitable "lifestyle" business.
rock57
Well, there is always an option to follow this advice: "If you don't absolutely positively have to have VC and if you aren't absolutely committed to growing to be a $1B revenue company regardless of risk, don't raise VC."
anon1385
Unfortunately a lot of people start out by going to an incubator like YC before they really realise what they are getting into (the billion dollar exit lottery instead of aiming for a profitable business). Once you go down that path it's difficult to avoid VC fundraising. The entire point of most incubators is to help you get connected with VCs and get funding.
ZachPruckowski
>"make a single-service product, get millions of investment dollars, sell it to Facebook or Google for billions at 1000x revenue premium while still not profitable and cash out"

And if you're not playing this game, realize that most of the folks that VCs see are.

Zigurd
Maybe I've met only high-quality VCs, but very few of these complaints apply to startups I've experienced firsthand, and others are hard to justify since, for example, you'll get turned down if you ask for an NDA. VCs being fickle about founders running the venture rings truest, but that cuts both ways: VCs can be loathe to admit a mistake and replace a bad CEO they invested in or hired.
jacquesm
Flagged this because it is not readable without being logged in there, and that's besides the false assertion in the title.
tomp
Is it possible that there's something wrong with your browser/cookies? I't readable for me (without being logged-in)...
rock57
Thanks for your feedback, just like tomp I've also tried to use the link in a browser (IE) where I'm not logged into Quora, and it worked out fine (I just had to click "Go and read Quora" button, without logging in, and for me it's not a big deal). Not sure what exactly do you mean by "false assertion in the title", especially assuming you were not able to read the linked Quora post's content. Point is that this specific Quora answer is summarized by the author with the sentence "All VC Funds Have Engaged in Some Arguably Questionable Behavior at Some Time -- From the (Non-Objective) Perspective of a Founder at least.", and this whole sentence is just much longer than 80 chars, so I had to truncate it somehow...