6 ms·

I raised a small seed round (200k) on my first company. At that time I felt like it was a staggering amount of money. The company didn't work and out we pretty

• buro9 11y ago
  It is indeed comforting. We lost our investors 150k GBP, and I've been feeling guilty about that. Investors invest what they can afford to lose.
• tedmiston 11y ago
  I think there's a similar founder guilt when founders go through an accelerator, but their company doesn't work out.
• vthallam 11y ago
  Tough luck! I have never raised funds and planning to raise funds soon, but back of mind, i do have fear of losing the investors money. I think the founders should get over this guilt as long as they were lean and did everything they could to save the company. Btw, How did your investors respond when it didn't work out?
  • db1 11y ago
    Things actually worked out okay. We had a sit down and amicably decided to wind things down. So I guess it hit me hard, but really was not a big deal to my investor.
• brianwawok 11y ago
  Honestly I think it is good to feel guilty. If you felt 0 guilt and just shrugged, I think it would make you seem a little bit of a irresponsible sociopath. Now obviously don't live in a basement for 6 months because of your sadness, it was an investment that they could afford to lose ;) But I think it normal / expected to feel sad/guilty when you let someone down...
  • tsunamifury 11y ago
    They gambled and lost. As long as you weren't funneling the money into your own account or fraudulently representing yourself you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.
    • makomk 11y ago
      Quite. It seems rather misplaced guilt if anything; the investors presumably saw enough of an upside across all of their investments to make up for the majority that failed. Yourself and your employees, not so much.
      • brianwawok 11y ago
        What if your seed money came from your grandparents and family. Does putting a face you know to the source of the lost money change how you feel?
        • yesimahuman 11y ago
          This is why you should think really, really hard about taking friends and family money. You might be able to handle the mental complexities of it, but I realized I couldn't.
    • morgante 11y ago
      I see where brianwawok is coming from. You shouldn't feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, but you also still let people down. Also keep in mind that most entrepreneurs raise some very early money from individuals ("friends and family") who don't have portfolios with dozens of companies.
      • Scirra_Tom 11y ago
        > but you also still let people down This isn't true in my opinion. (Unless you didn't do what you said you'd do).
  • 11y ago
• jerguismi 11y ago
  > I have a little more perspective now and realize that it was practically insignificant to my investor. Depends on the investor. There are probably thousands of VC's, and not all of them are comparable to union square ventures.
• rburhum 11y ago
  At 200K, you were most certainly raising from angels and not VCs, so the returns are different...
• icedchai 11y ago
  Look at it this way: Would you have felt better if you lost your own money?