Founders

This drives me nuts about VCs and I’m gonna call I the Colin paradox from now on

How can both these casts be true at once?

VCs want this amazing story for how you’ll be the next decacorn, but also major pivots are very common.

wtf is the point?

building /cabin, advising /clanker and /farcon | grin.io

Why do they even take the meeting if they know up front they’re not investing regardless. Seems rude

Remember that quite often when you are pitching a VC, they aren’t investing regardless, and it has more to do with them than you.

creating and destroying; built flying cars & autonomous vehicles, now building roc.camera, writings: july.rocks

Im raising a fund for my education and maybe your profit. Anyone interested?

I think the easiest way to learn why this is happening is to become a VC and have a bunch of Colin’s pitch you to find out why you’d end up in the same position, perhaps

janitor for /zk and some more stuff here linktr.ee/randomishwalk

also this https://x.com/brianretford/status/1748957447178661921

Healthcare investor by day, web3/AI tinkerer by night. 🟪 Host: /venturecapital /theitinerant

I hear you and agree

I don’t think @cojo.eth lacks a map or conviction. I think he’s not convincing VCs that his map/conviction meet their standards. And I’m suggesting their standards don’t match the “often there’s a pivot” reality

Founders don’t get lost, they often change trips altogether

Imagine you're going on a long-distance road trip. 

Just because there's a good chance you'll get lost once or twice along the way doesn't mean you should start without a map you have conviction in.

Drifting aimlessly and finding success is the exception not the norm.

https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part2.html
HT @Omar for sharing this gem with me years ago

Multiplying onchain economies. Working on interfaces /comint and intelligence @tenfold
Past: AI and crypto rubinovitz.com

They bullshitted Colin and just for whatever reason didn’t vibe w/him is my read

+1 to what was being said and...

having a decacorn story shows that you set your goals at $10B+ outcomes. so even if you pivot, you'll probably still look for a big opportunity.

They’re both true because the data is all noise and no signal

I've been advising a founder going through this problem with fundraising recently.

Focus is good! Unless you need more ambition, then you need to be grand! And so on 📈📉

It's just a human (or set of humans) making an emotional decision. You try to justify it with analytical rigor (and different VC's / firms are moved by different factors), but at the end of the day you fall in love or you don't. There isn't a forumla.

I feel your frustration I think it’s a mix of narrative and a lot of emotional responses. 

The macro environment I feel matters a lot too despite many saying it doesn’t. 

A good idea 6 months ago isn’t always a good idea today.

I'd be alarmed if from pre-seed to a later date that a vision hasn't changed.

Few startups (aside from deeptech space ones) avoid straying from their initial thesis.

All that an investor cares about is if the founder has what it takes to be able to give them a profitable exit in the future irrespective of what’s being built.

Founders should show that *if* their thing works, it has the potential to be huge 

This serves as evidence for VCs that they as people actually understand what "big" truly is and that they really want to go after it (vs building a stable but non-VC-returning business)

Pre-seed -> No hard quantitative data -> More vibe-based investing

And vibes aren't single-wavelength!