6 ms·

Never heard of the assertion that VCs hate remote teams. Anyone care to expand on that?

krallja 8y ago
Definitely my experience; one of the first things that happens after an A-round is all the remote workers get asked to move near HQ, and can’t, so they have to resign with no severance. And the standard startup recruiting playbook is to say “we will consider remote for the right candidate” when inquired, but all their hires seem to come from the same central California town the company founders live in.
- ascendantlogic 8y ago
  What's the reasoning for that though from the VC perspective?
  - NullPrefix 8y ago
    They want to come in and see the monkeys working at the zoo.
    - dudul 8y ago
      I wonder if readers will take this comment seriously, but it very much sums up the reasoning based on my experience. And some CEOs think that too. I've been part of startups where VCs would stop by to pat on the CEO on the back, take a little tour of the office, happy to see 15-ish bozos banging on the keyboard. Sometimes they would invite some of their buddies to show off their monkeys. I don't know, maybe it was the VC version of a dick fight.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        I have seen that too. It's especially important to show off someone from MIT or Stanford when the VCs do their rounds.
- whateveracct 8y ago
  And what if the majority of the founding team is remote?
nosequel 8y ago
Yes, this is very much a thing. When one startup I was at took another round, the new VC demanded everyone be in SF. We were asked to move to SF or get fired. We all chose to get fired and took our severance somewhere else.
- dasmoth 8y ago
  Was a reason ever given? I'm not exactly surprised by this, but it seems pretty irrational, especially if the distributed company is already working reasonably well (which presumably it is, if they've just closed another round).
  - qaq 8y ago
    VCs being personally invested in SF real estate :)?
  - nosequel 8y ago
    The reason we were given was that they believed that true innovation could only be found by sitting around a physical table discussing ideas. I actually ran into the CEO a year after this happened and he still believed it to be true. "There's no way we would've been able to pull off our last pivot without everyone sitting around the table late at night spitting out ideas". Oh well. I'm at a better company now.
lazerwalker 8y ago
I've experienced this in my current fund-raising endeavors. A reductive narrative: a lot of investors like to pattern-match, and SV is full of many more success stories of a small tight-knit team collaborating well in a tiny shared garage office than it is of teams who managed to create a functioning collaborative distributed workflow. (In our case, we've managed to sidestep this so far by working with smart angels who get it, and by working in a space — indie games — where distributed teams are comparatively common. Also helps that my cofounder is in SF and can take in-person meetings. I do worry we'll feel pressure at the A round to consolidate, but I'll be pushing hard against it.)

Definitely my experience; one of the first things that happens after an A-round is all the remote workers get asked to move near HQ, and can’t, so they have to resign with no severance. And the standard startup recruiting playbook is to say “we will consider remote for the right candidate” when inquired, but all their hires seem to come from the same central California town the company founders live in.

ascendantlogic 8y ago
What's the reasoning for that though from the VC perspective?
- NullPrefix 8y ago
  They want to come in and see the monkeys working at the zoo.
  - dudul 8y ago
    I wonder if readers will take this comment seriously, but it very much sums up the reasoning based on my experience. And some CEOs think that too. I've been part of startups where VCs would stop by to pat on the CEO on the back, take a little tour of the office, happy to see 15-ish bozos banging on the keyboard. Sometimes they would invite some of their buddies to show off their monkeys. I don't know, maybe it was the VC version of a dick fight.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      I have seen that too. It's especially important to show off someone from MIT or Stanford when the VCs do their rounds.
whateveracct 8y ago
And what if the majority of the founding team is remote?

nosequel 8y ago

Yes, this is very much a thing. When one startup I was at took another round, the new VC demanded everyone be in SF. We were asked to move to SF or get fired. We all chose to get fired and took our severance somewhere else.

dasmoth 8y ago
Was a reason ever given? I'm not exactly surprised by this, but it seems pretty irrational, especially if the distributed company is already working reasonably well (which presumably it is, if they've just closed another round).
- qaq 8y ago
  VCs being personally invested in SF real estate :)?
- nosequel 8y ago
  The reason we were given was that they believed that true innovation could only be found by sitting around a physical table discussing ideas. I actually ran into the CEO a year after this happened and he still believed it to be true. "There's no way we would've been able to pull off our last pivot without everyone sitting around the table late at night spitting out ideas". Oh well. I'm at a better company now.

lazerwalker 8y ago

I've experienced this in my current fund-raising endeavors. A reductive narrative: a lot of investors like to pattern-match, and SV is full of many more success stories of a small tight-knit team collaborating well in a tiny shared garage office than it is of teams who managed to create a functioning collaborative distributed workflow. (In our case, we've managed to sidestep this so far by working with smart angels who get it, and by working in a space — indie games — where distributed teams are comparatively common. Also helps that my cofounder is in SF and can take in-person meetings. I do worry we'll feel pressure at the A round to consolidate, but I'll be pushing hard against it.)