Below are some of the things investors say to early stage companies that is just wrong.“Don’t take the first offer you get.” While true, this is a very misleading statement to make to a crowd of early stage founders. It’s wrong to make early stage founders believe they will get all kinds of offers from investors. 19 out of 20 early stage founders will receive no offer at all. 4 out of 20 will figure out how to build a business in spite of not receiving any investor support. The other 15 out of 20 will toil away at a business that ultimately exhausts them and fails. We need to be honest about the failure rate and how truly difficult it is to be an early stage founder raising capital. Despite the view in Silicon Valley that failing is healthy and even ok, the actual process of failing is stressful and very taxing both mentally and financially; there is no glory in failing.“You need a warm intro to talk to me.” I hate when VC make this arrogant statement. You have better things to do with your time than scour LinkedIn and beg your network to make an intro to a VC they barely know. Rather than spending time networking, put together a very concise paragraph about your business and reach out to VC cold. If your paragraph is concise - it explains the business, highlights 5 wonderful metrics, includes your ask and valuation, and where you can be reached - you will get a response. There aren’t enough good deals out there so if your paragraph is truly compelling, you won’t need a warm intro because VC will be all over you. By the way, my email address is sammy@blossomstreetventures.com. We welcome cold emails from founders. You can also connect with me on LI. We invest $1mm in growth rounds, inside rounds, and other ‘special situations’ all over the US & Canada.
Enjoyed this post?
Share it using the links below.