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One aspect of this is that PG and YC have shown themselves to be very understanding investors. I would rather sell stock to somebody understanding in that way t

by bl4k 16y ago

One aspect of this is that PG and YC have shown themselves to be very understanding investors. I would rather sell stock to somebody understanding in that way than to deal with a multitude of people who I don't know telling me what I am doing right or wrong. The first time I raised money I made the mistake of not knowing two of the investors well enough, but I took their money anyway and they ended up being complete assholes. I will never live that decision down, because of how much damage and wasted time it caused (much more than what they themselves invested). I have no experience with Kickstarter, but you could see some examples of that with Diaspora - people putting pressure on the company to go one way or another because 'hey, we funded this thing! listen to us!'. It sounds like potentially having hundreds of asshole investors (I know they don't get stock, but that doesn't effect some persons right to think and behave like they do). YC is also a shortcut into the SV network, which can be very important depending on your plans for the company. The experience PG et al bring etc. doesn't need repeating. So based on what I know and what I saw with Diaspora (YMMV etc.) I would definitely choose YC over KS if I was raising money.

modkit 16y ago
Very good points.. As far as the hundreds of annoying investors, I never really thought of it.. But I guess that happens anyway whenever you take any customer's money.. Except in the Diaspora case, they took the money in advance of development with an expectation that what they were building would satisfy each user which is an impossible scenario from the outset.. Plus the project was open source which I don't think is exactly the norm for a YC investment.. But I think in the end, Diaspora is a fluke.. Statistically and Culturally.. Statistically, it's outcome was not representative of a typical Kickstarter Funding process.. Culturally it was the result of some backlash against Facebook.. That means some of the backers were already pissed off and the open source focus means the some were likely quite vocal to begin with.. I think the combination of these factors and the fact that the funders came in before anything was built leads to the scenario you mention.. Our product was already quite built out before we came to kickstarter and users were pledging for Alpha access and other near future products.. Interestingly enough, we got a front page post on Sparkfun.com today and there were a few non-backers who had something to say about how we should build our project.. The fact that it IS already a project means that they can criticize without making the mistake of backing us and feeling swindled that we don't share their vision.. A few times, the complaint was that we should turn our web based product open source even when they criticized our design.. I think complainers will complain no matter what, and the question of ownership and control is very important as in the case of your investor..

by bl4k 16y ago

modkit 16y ago

Very good points.. As far as the hundreds of annoying investors, I never really thought of it.. But I guess that happens anyway whenever you take any customer's money.. Except in the Diaspora case, they took the money in advance of development with an expectation that what they were building would satisfy each user which is an impossible scenario from the outset.. Plus the project was open source which I don't think is exactly the norm for a YC investment.. But I think in the end, Diaspora is a fluke.. Statistically and Culturally.. Statistically, it's outcome was not representative of a typical Kickstarter Funding process.. Culturally it was the result of some backlash against Facebook.. That means some of the backers were already pissed off and the open source focus means the some were likely quite vocal to begin with.. I think the combination of these factors and the fact that the funders came in before anything was built leads to the scenario you mention.. Our product was already quite built out before we came to kickstarter and users were pledging for Alpha access and other near future products.. Interestingly enough, we got a front page post on Sparkfun.com today and there were a few non-backers who had something to say about how we should build our project.. The fact that it IS already a project means that they can criticize without making the mistake of backing us and feeling swindled that we don't share their vision.. A few times, the complaint was that we should turn our web based product open source even when they criticized our design.. I think complainers will complain no matter what, and the question of ownership and control is very important as in the case of your investor..