Skip to main content

Why are VCs arrogant?

Image
By
In a posting on the rising popularity of VC Rating site thefunded.com, Jeff Bussgang explains why.
Why are VCs often arrogant? Is that what they teach us at VC breeding schools? I think some of it is just the nature of the business. As I mentioned in my post “Dr. Seuss and The Land of No”, VCs have the job of saying “no” hundreds of times for every “yes” that they fund. To be efficient, they are trained to say “no” quickly and not waste time on projects they simply don’t like or don’t believe in. Whether you believe in a project or not is such a subjective standard, that it can always be open for debate and argument. But VCs can’t afford to have debates and arguments about projects they don’t like, they must quickly, unemotionally move on to the next one.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are emotionally attached to their projects and wired to believe that what they are working on is the absolute best thing going on – after all, they chose to work on it at the expense of every other new start-up or job they could have pursued. Thus, it is hard for them to contain their natural enthusiasm over why what they’re doing absolutely deserves to get funded. And nothing is more frustrating for a “walk through walls” entrepreneur than to be dismissed by a VC, no matter how graciously.


His solution?
The trick, therefore, is for VCs to simply treat entrepreneurs with R-E-S-P-E-C-T. That’s all entrepreneurs are askin’ for. Just because a VC may not like the idea, or even the person hawking the idea, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t treat them with decency and respect. On the flip side, the entrepreneurs should remember that it’s the VCs job to sift through hundreds of opportunities and spend time only on very few. If it’s not a good fit for them, move on. That’s why TheFunded has struck a chord.

Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports.

Popular posts from this blog

How I Raised Funding - Priyanka Agarwal, Wishberry

By
You have to be confident and shameless while crowdfunding. Priyanka Agarwal, Wishberry shares on how to succeed in crowd funding with Venture Intelligence in this  interview. Priyanka also candidly shares how the team built Wishberry, raised funding from top angel investors like Rajan Anandan, on pivoting, and difficulties in raising capital for entrepreneurs operating in niche spaces not chased by VCs. Q: What does Wishberry do? Priyanka Agarwal : In its latest avatar, Wishberry has pivoted into crowd financing of low budget films (INR 1-5 Cr). We are essentially trying to create an internet platform for investment opportunities for HNIs in films including Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, or films targeting the global diaspora. L-R: Co-founders Anshulika Dubey & Priyanka Agarwal, Wishberry Given that you are building a marketplace, how did Wishberry solve the Chicken and Egg problem? Beyond the “all or nothing” model what did Wishberry do to pull in more arti...
Read more

Profile of Career Forum founder

By
The Starship Enterprise column in The Economic Times (not available online), featured Sujata Khanna of entrance exam training institute, Career Forum. The company, which started with just seven students in Pune, now covers over 39 cities reaching over 15,000 students. ...The most important milestone I think was in 1995 when we decided to incorporate Career Forum into a Company. This brought in a lot of professionalism and we also went for expansion. ...Strong technical network is our unique selling proposition. We have a strong ERP system running across all centres in all areas of business from distribution to logistics... Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the Private Equity and Venture Capital ecosystem in India. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.
Read more

Should VCs buy out angels?

By
Interesting discussion at VentureWoods between Deepak Shenoy and Roshan D'Silva on this " perennial topic ". Here are their first posts (in the comments section): Deepak Shenoy said, Alok, true - there is reason to think about why one wants to exit. As a stock market investor, I have made decisions to sell companies at (say) 400% profits, when the company went on towards 1000% of what I bought - yet, I wasn’t sulking in a corner. Because a) 400% is pretty nice and b) I’d reached that comfort level of profits. Angels may not want to stay the distance, which could be much longer than their cash needs, and if the current valuation is attractive enough for them to exit. As individuals I would imagine that angel investors are the kinds that put in Rs. 10 lakhs to Rs. 50 lakhs in a business - and honestly, there are a number of such people who have this kind of cash lying idle in bank accounts (idle = they don’t need it right now). Such people can be angels, but they won’t b...
Read more