7 ms·

Not only does lpolovets really reply to cold emails, he also makes warm introductions to other VCs after meeting those cold emailers. Source: personal experien

Not only does lpolovets really reply to cold emails, he also makes warm introductions to other VCs after meeting those cold emailers. Source: personal experience

graycat 9y ago
I never saw his e-mail address, but my e-mail to SUSA, with the material I posted below, was totally ignored. My experience is that VCs just ignore unsolicted e-mail. I've sent several hundred that got totally ignored. I've never had a VC give a meaningful response to anything I sent them. Again, IMHO, the VCs want traction, significant and growing rapidly, and they want to hear about the company from some solid source other than the founders, say, from an article in Tech Crunch or some such. From all my data, that's what it looks like to me. Besides, I'm a sole, solo founder and want to keep it that way, and VCs and YC don't like solo founders. So, by the time my startup has traction, really revenue, enough to get a VC to write a check, I, as a solo founder with a startup just dirt cheap to run, will no longer want and will not accept such a check. And I will have plenty of cash for very rapid growth. So, that's my response to the OP.
- CalRobert 9y ago
  I certainly don't wish to be rude, but if your emails are anything like the material you posted below I can pretty much promise nobody has ever bothered to read them. There is a time for long, flowing prose. Cold emails to people whose time is worth a lot of money isn't one of them.
  - graycat 9y ago
    As I've explained in overwhelming detail in this thread, I sent about 800 e-mail messages to VCs and got back essentially nothing. What I sent was never like what I posted here for the technical HN audience. For nearly all the 800 or so, I started with something very short, e.g., an executive summary or an elevator pitch. I gave a sample below at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283099 and will repeat it for you here: --- Executive Summary, Elevator Pitch --- There are about 3 billion Internet users in the world. There is a problem (I can explain very quickly but won't explain in public yet but have explained to lots of VCs) that is pressing for essentially all those users but so far solved at best poorly. I have developed an excellent, and the first good, solution, now in software about ready to go live. Ballpark, good users will visit my Web site solution a few times a week, and from simple arithmetic the company should relatively soon be worth ballpark $1 T. That pitch or anything like it, just that, or with more below, as text in e-mail or in a nicely done PDF foil deck, revised dozens of times, polished, etc. is a non-starter. No VC in the country will touch it with a pole 5 miles long. My other posts to this tread today have some guesses just why. When I first considered VC funding, I had some projects that needed some equity funding. No VC wanted to fund those projects. So, I cooked up my present project with planning that I could take the project to live on the Web, good revenue, plenty of revenue for rapid growth, with that growth plenty of revenue for much more rapid growth, ..., all the way to a very successful company and, maybe exit and lots of financial security for myself and my family, all as 100% owner with no equity funding at all. Well, I'm nicely on track for just that, with the software in alpha test and essentially ready to go live. I just didn't want to depend on VCs or report to a BoD. I still have some interest in VCs as, say, backup in case of some financial emergency or just as sources of feedback. But I've found that VCs essentially, it's easy to conclude, just really hate everything about my work! Everything! Really hate! I wasted a LOT of time contacting VCs, for all the projects I've tried including the present one. My view is that VCs have Web sites that mislead entrepreneurs, get the entrepreneurs to contact, often strain to contact, VCs, and then the VCs, finally apparently with perverse pleasure, just ignore the entrepreneurs. The claims on the VC Web sites are 90+% total BS. So, I didn't get pissed -- I got way beyond pissed. But I've mostly gotten over being pissed -- I just accept that VCs are a bunch of losers that, on average, actually are not making much money. So, here on HN, in response to the OP, I am responding to warn other HN entrepreneurs that mostly VCs are just a waste of time. Even if you get their check, you have to put up with them on your BoD, and that's not going be a picnic either.
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      I know nothing about your idea and please don't consider this a comment on that but ... > Ballpark, good users will visit my Web site solution a few times a week, and from simple arithmetic the company should relatively soon be worth ballpark $1 T. VCs almost certainly hear this kind of claim multiple times a week and are thoroughly experienced in how frequently this turns out to be true (practically zero) - hence without some kind of demonstration or hook they can anchor themselves to, it's going to go straight in the bin.
      - graycat 9y ago
        Nonsense. If VCs can do simple arithmetic, they can verify that claim for themselves. The issue is just the 1 billion users, and that's easy enough to believe with the explanation of the problem I'm solving because it is obvious that the problem is pressing to nearly every Internet user in the world. Then the question is how the heck to solve the problem, and why I have a solution and no one else does. The answer there is my original applied math. Sorry 'bout that, but I'm fully capable of doing such math, have done good original math back to high school, and have a Ph.D. from a world class research university and peer-reviewed publications as evidence. For the e-mail I sent SUSA, I included a PDF of one of my papers that clearly shows good math ability; I included the PDF and also the reference to the paper on the shelves of the research libraries. The journal for the paper? Information Sciences, an Elsevier journal. Fully serious stuff. Exceptionally good projects are what the VCs need, e.g., "another Google", and that's what I write them about. To take my claims seriously, sure, the VCs and I would have to communicate further. E.g., one poster here says that my pitch should be about five words on one, line, short enough to be just the subject line of an e-mail. I've done that, too, e.g., $1 T Quickly or some such with the e-mail body with an elevator pitch of just 2-3 sentences. That gets ignored, too. IMHO, a lesson for HN people if they want is what I did or didn't write is just irrelevant. Instead, nearly no VC will ever read an unsolicited e-mail. They all go "straight to the bin". For the really solid evidence of "demonstration or hook," that would be when I have $2 million a month in revenue, right? Then they can give me a call, and I will look up when I wrote them and told them what I was doing that they ignored. So, I'm at $2 million a month, and they want to buy 30% of my company for a seed round of $1 million? And I should be thrilled by that? > VCs almost certainly hear this kind of claim multiple times a week and are thoroughly experienced in how frequently this turns out to be true (practically zero) Right. So, they'd be a lot happier if I projected only 1 million good users instead of 1 billion, a company worth $1 B instead of $1 T? I'd be just the same: Again, once again, the VCs ignore unsolicited e-mail messages, no matter how short, long, rough, polished, etc. The VCs believe that any entrepreneur who sends anything to info@BigVC.com is a fool. Maybe so. But, who is the fool, the entrepreneur or the VC who invites entrepreneurs to send to a black hole? E.g., as elsewhere in this thread, SUSA claims to "seek out" good startups. Well, they don't "seek" very far if they ignore their e-mail. The US is awash in people and institutions that can do really accurate evaluations of projects described just on paper. In fact, they insist on descriptions on paper, and projects that pass such evaluations are high payoff and low risk. Examples include GPS, Keyhole, the H-bomb, stealth, and much more. High end engineering projects are done that way -- on paper. There is hardly a single VC in the country qualified to evaluate such papers. For the organizations, e.g., NSF, DARPA, ONR, Army Durham, Air Force Cambridge, CIA, NSA, etc. hardly a single VC in the country is qualified for such a job. The core technology comes from the best US research universities, and hardly a single VC in the country is qualified for a faculty slot at such a place. For commercial work, the IBM Watson lab is comparable, and I've been a research scientist there on an AI project, wrote and gave a paper at an AAAI IAAI conference at Stanford, etc. There's hardly a single VC in the country qualified to do that. There are not very many projects good enough to be "another Google", and the ones that are the VCs can't evaluate. So, I have a lesson for HN readers: The VCs are not good partners in a technology project and won't read their e-mail. For warm introductions, they don't know the right people.

Not only does lpolovets really reply to cold emails, he also makes warm introductions to other VCs after meeting those cold emailers. Source: personal experience

graycat 9y ago

I never saw his e-mail address, but my e-mail to SUSA, with the material I posted below, was totally ignored. My experience is that VCs just ignore unsolicted e-mail. I've sent several hundred that got totally ignored. I've never had a VC give a meaningful response to anything I sent them. Again, IMHO, the VCs want traction, significant and growing rapidly, and they want to hear about the company from some solid source other than the founders, say, from an article in Tech Crunch or some such. From all my data, that's what it looks like to me. Besides, I'm a sole, solo founder and want to keep it that way, and VCs and YC don't like solo founders. So, by the time my startup has traction, really revenue, enough to get a VC to write a check, I, as a solo founder with a startup just dirt cheap to run, will no longer want and will not accept such a check. And I will have plenty of cash for very rapid growth. So, that's my response to the OP.

CalRobert 9y ago
I certainly don't wish to be rude, but if your emails are anything like the material you posted below I can pretty much promise nobody has ever bothered to read them. There is a time for long, flowing prose. Cold emails to people whose time is worth a lot of money isn't one of them.
- graycat 9y ago
  As I've explained in overwhelming detail in this thread, I sent about 800 e-mail messages to VCs and got back essentially nothing. What I sent was never like what I posted here for the technical HN audience. For nearly all the 800 or so, I started with something very short, e.g., an executive summary or an elevator pitch. I gave a sample below at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283099 and will repeat it for you here: --- Executive Summary, Elevator Pitch --- There are about 3 billion Internet users in the world. There is a problem (I can explain very quickly but won't explain in public yet but have explained to lots of VCs) that is pressing for essentially all those users but so far solved at best poorly. I have developed an excellent, and the first good, solution, now in software about ready to go live. Ballpark, good users will visit my Web site solution a few times a week, and from simple arithmetic the company should relatively soon be worth ballpark $1 T. That pitch or anything like it, just that, or with more below, as text in e-mail or in a nicely done PDF foil deck, revised dozens of times, polished, etc. is a non-starter. No VC in the country will touch it with a pole 5 miles long. My other posts to this tread today have some guesses just why. When I first considered VC funding, I had some projects that needed some equity funding. No VC wanted to fund those projects. So, I cooked up my present project with planning that I could take the project to live on the Web, good revenue, plenty of revenue for rapid growth, with that growth plenty of revenue for much more rapid growth, ..., all the way to a very successful company and, maybe exit and lots of financial security for myself and my family, all as 100% owner with no equity funding at all. Well, I'm nicely on track for just that, with the software in alpha test and essentially ready to go live. I just didn't want to depend on VCs or report to a BoD. I still have some interest in VCs as, say, backup in case of some financial emergency or just as sources of feedback. But I've found that VCs essentially, it's easy to conclude, just really hate everything about my work! Everything! Really hate! I wasted a LOT of time contacting VCs, for all the projects I've tried including the present one. My view is that VCs have Web sites that mislead entrepreneurs, get the entrepreneurs to contact, often strain to contact, VCs, and then the VCs, finally apparently with perverse pleasure, just ignore the entrepreneurs. The claims on the VC Web sites are 90+% total BS. So, I didn't get pissed -- I got way beyond pissed. But I've mostly gotten over being pissed -- I just accept that VCs are a bunch of losers that, on average, actually are not making much money. So, here on HN, in response to the OP, I am responding to warn other HN entrepreneurs that mostly VCs are just a waste of time. Even if you get their check, you have to put up with them on your BoD, and that's not going be a picnic either.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    I know nothing about your idea and please don't consider this a comment on that but ... > Ballpark, good users will visit my Web site solution a few times a week, and from simple arithmetic the company should relatively soon be worth ballpark $1 T. VCs almost certainly hear this kind of claim multiple times a week and are thoroughly experienced in how frequently this turns out to be true (practically zero) - hence without some kind of demonstration or hook they can anchor themselves to, it's going to go straight in the bin.
    - graycat 9y ago
      Nonsense. If VCs can do simple arithmetic, they can verify that claim for themselves. The issue is just the 1 billion users, and that's easy enough to believe with the explanation of the problem I'm solving because it is obvious that the problem is pressing to nearly every Internet user in the world. Then the question is how the heck to solve the problem, and why I have a solution and no one else does. The answer there is my original applied math. Sorry 'bout that, but I'm fully capable of doing such math, have done good original math back to high school, and have a Ph.D. from a world class research university and peer-reviewed publications as evidence. For the e-mail I sent SUSA, I included a PDF of one of my papers that clearly shows good math ability; I included the PDF and also the reference to the paper on the shelves of the research libraries. The journal for the paper? Information Sciences, an Elsevier journal. Fully serious stuff. Exceptionally good projects are what the VCs need, e.g., "another Google", and that's what I write them about. To take my claims seriously, sure, the VCs and I would have to communicate further. E.g., one poster here says that my pitch should be about five words on one, line, short enough to be just the subject line of an e-mail. I've done that, too, e.g., $1 T Quickly or some such with the e-mail body with an elevator pitch of just 2-3 sentences. That gets ignored, too. IMHO, a lesson for HN people if they want is what I did or didn't write is just irrelevant. Instead, nearly no VC will ever read an unsolicited e-mail. They all go "straight to the bin". For the really solid evidence of "demonstration or hook," that would be when I have $2 million a month in revenue, right? Then they can give me a call, and I will look up when I wrote them and told them what I was doing that they ignored. So, I'm at $2 million a month, and they want to buy 30% of my company for a seed round of $1 million? And I should be thrilled by that? > VCs almost certainly hear this kind of claim multiple times a week and are thoroughly experienced in how frequently this turns out to be true (practically zero) Right. So, they'd be a lot happier if I projected only 1 million good users instead of 1 billion, a company worth $1 B instead of $1 T? I'd be just the same: Again, once again, the VCs ignore unsolicited e-mail messages, no matter how short, long, rough, polished, etc. The VCs believe that any entrepreneur who sends anything to info@BigVC.com is a fool. Maybe so. But, who is the fool, the entrepreneur or the VC who invites entrepreneurs to send to a black hole? E.g., as elsewhere in this thread, SUSA claims to "seek out" good startups. Well, they don't "seek" very far if they ignore their e-mail. The US is awash in people and institutions that can do really accurate evaluations of projects described just on paper. In fact, they insist on descriptions on paper, and projects that pass such evaluations are high payoff and low risk. Examples include GPS, Keyhole, the H-bomb, stealth, and much more. High end engineering projects are done that way -- on paper. There is hardly a single VC in the country qualified to evaluate such papers. For the organizations, e.g., NSF, DARPA, ONR, Army Durham, Air Force Cambridge, CIA, NSA, etc. hardly a single VC in the country is qualified for such a job. The core technology comes from the best US research universities, and hardly a single VC in the country is qualified for a faculty slot at such a place. For commercial work, the IBM Watson lab is comparable, and I've been a research scientist there on an AI project, wrote and gave a paper at an AAAI IAAI conference at Stanford, etc. There's hardly a single VC in the country qualified to do that. There are not very many projects good enough to be "another Google", and the ones that are the VCs can't evaluate. So, I have a lesson for HN readers: The VCs are not good partners in a technology project and won't read their e-mail. For warm introductions, they don't know the right people.