I Hate VC's

16 points

2 years ago

I have started a number of companies. All self-funded. Some were successful and others were "experiences". My last company was almost acquired for tens of millions of dollars when the economy imploded in 2008 and the world froze.

A few years ago I decided I could take some of the technologies developed for that business and apply them to a new domain: Energy Optimization. The idea was to support wide deployment of EV's. Today this has shifted to power-hungry AI data centers. I self-funded this hardware/software startup and got on with developing the products.

The pandemic forced us to pivot in 2020. We developed an aircraft disinfection robot. We had a lot of interest from major airlines and a $50MM sales pipeline. When the vaccine was announced, interest evaporated.

How you deal with the tough moments in life and business is important. You have to be resilient.

In 2022, we closed a sale worth about $200K based on the pre-pandemic project. We finished the design (software and hardware), manufactured it in-house and shipped it by the end of the year.

At that point, it was easy to see that seeking external funding to scale and accelerate market penetration was the correct path.

What I was not ready for was the revelation of how shitty this world can be, an often is. Going through YC Startup School did not prepare me for this reality.

Here are some of aspects of the experience (non-exhaustive):

  - Conferences designed to suck money out of entrepreneurs
  - Well known organizations that also suck money out of entrepreneurs
  - IP attorneys who hold expensive events with investors who are there to stroke each others' egos
  - IP attorneys who try to convince entrepreneurs to spend large sums of money on filings before speaking with anyone
  - You can spend tens of thousands of dollars at all sorts of events and get nothing for it
  - Meetups that are nothing more than an excuse to go drink at a bar (low quality engagements and conversations)
  - Conferences where entrepreneurs are asked to pay thousands of dollars for a table and a 15 minute speaking slot
  - Ghosting
  - "Let's meet this week" ... and then nothing, ghosted
  - Pointlessly deep dives into projections
  - Pointless requests for long term business plans
  - Chasing after AI unicorns
  - Impossible to reach
  - Age discrimination
  - $5K to $10K/month VC consultants who claim to have all the answers
  - Single founder discrimination
  - Hardware?  The room goes "Poof!" and you are left talking to the janitors
  - Applied to YC?  Yes!
      - No feedback whatsoever
   - What's the point?
   - Do you really want to help entrepreneurs?
   - Then help them?  
   - Give them feedback
   - Hard?  What we do is harder

I had people from prominent family offices, investment funds, bankers and VC's stand up in the middle of my presentation and say things like "Come talk to me. I want to fund you", only to be ghosted two weeks later. I had people in the same meeting (about 200 in the audience) stand up and say "We are doing a $100MM project right now that can use this technology. Let's talk.". Ghosted. My guess is this was about virtue-signaling in front of their peers.

I had someone "commit" to $2MM. Ghosted. I had someone from a fund in Europe ask to get in on the round once we got our first investor. Ghosted.

I had a VC reject us based on advice of a recent grad "CTO" barely capable of running a cookie baking operation.

Etc.

This all makes me wonder how many startups die a painful death because VC's are shit.

VC's: A starting point might just be the idea of treating others as you would like to be treated.

Time to pivot into an AI startup I guess. I can play that game as much as anybody. Here's to using AI to get people to click on a button. Yeah, that's going to save the world.

Here's a throw-away email address for this post:

[email protected]

11 comments

- Conferences designed to suck money out of entrepreneurs - Well known organizations that also suck money out of entrepreneurs - IP attorneys who hold expensive events with investors who are there to stroke each others' egos - IP attorneys who try to convince entrepreneurs to spend large sums of money on filings before speaking with anyone - You can spend tens of thousands of dollars at all sorts of events and get nothing for it - Meetups that are nothing more than an excuse to go drink at a bar (low quality engagements and conversations) - Conferences where entrepreneurs are asked to pay thousands of dollars for a table and a 15 minute speaking slot - Ghosting - "Let's meet this week" ... and then nothing, ghosted - Pointlessly deep dives into projections - Pointless requests for long term business plans - Chasing after AI unicorns - Impossible to reach - Age discrimination - $5K to $10K/month VC consultants who claim to have all the answers - Single founder discrimination - Hardware? The room goes "Poof!" and you are left talking to the janitors - Applied to YC? Yes! - No feedback whatsoever - What's the point? - Do you really want to help entrepreneurs? - Then help them? - Give them feedback - Hard? What we do is harder