A lot of founders ask, “What are the metrics for a Series A?”
“You don’t earn a fundraising round as a reward for the past.”
What you’re doing is selling a ticket to the future—and the thing you’re trying to convince an investor is that you’re a) presenting a vision of the future they want to be a part of and b) you can actually execute on it.
That latter part is where we need to talk about tadpoles and frogs.
This week, I got my wisdom teeth out—all four of them.
You might be wondering what took me so long. I’m 45 and most people have them out between the ages of 17 and 25.
One helpful bit of context is that until very recently, I hadn’t been to the dentist since 1998.
Here’s what happened…
Your venture career is better off if you're working alongside the best possible people. The more of them there are that perform up to the kind of level where they have a shot at bringing in a fund-returning deal, the better it is for you.
Remember, when, at best, only about 20% of firms ever make it to a Fund III, there’s more of a chance that your path to partnership is blocked by the death of your firm than by the presence of another investor in your way.
In 2015, a then 18-year-old Harry Stebbings launched The Twenty Minute VC from his bedroom in London. No background in venture capital. No industry connections. No podcasting experience. Just a cheap mic, an internet connection, and two things:
Curiosity and initiative.
Instead of waiting for the perfect job, a mentor, or an MBA to unlock those doors, he just started asking questions. Literally.
He cold-emailed VCs and invited them on his podcast.
Not to pitch them. Not to impress them. Just to learn from them.
And here’s the thing: they said yes. Not all of them, obviously—but a few. Guy Kawasaki and Brad Feld were early big names, but why did they bother?
Gone are the days of the startup launch party. Remember those nights of trying to explain to a Techcrunch reporter why your app was going to change the world over thumping music and bad venue WiFi?
RIP.
Most startups know not to blow a bunch of money on a big party before they have their first users, but legitimate questions remain about what you do in its place—and how you open yourself up to the world that gets attention.
Founders still want to get press and investors to notice them, but they don’t have a lot of money to work with. What are they supposed to do today?
VCs don’t owe you a goddamn thing—and especially not after they’ve already met with you. That was the time they had for you. They offered a meeting—no more and no less.
The fact that you didn’t spend the last few minutes of the meeting asking for specific feedback and posing the question of whether or not the VC was going to move this forward as a champion of the deal or at least whether they wanted to schedule a next call is your failure. When you’ve got any kind of a lead—be it for selling your product or selling your equity—and you let them go with no scheduled next step, you risk never speaking to them again.
That’s your problem, not theirs.
Everything you’ve heard about fundraising—all the worst things about it—are largely true.
Yes, straight white dudes get most of the money.
Yes, biased straight white does dole out most of the money.
Yes, many of these founders are pitching dumb stuff that gets funded all the time—especially by people they know.
Yes, someone else in the Silicon Valley insiders club got way more money than you for basically the same idea, even though you were first.
All true.
Here’s the other truth: The venture fundraising process actually does a pretty good job of distributing capital to the founders with the best chance of creating big financial outcomes.
There aren’t a lot of places you can go online that genuinely make you feel good—and that bring out the best in you…
…especially in an election year.
That’s why when you’re in a social network for over a decade and you’ve never ever seen a negative post, gotten into an argument, or never felt worse about yourself for the time you spent on it, it really stands out.
