4 ms·

I agree with the article, but I also disagree with investor focus on defensibility over hardness. If you are investing in a generic software startup at an earl

I agree with the article, but I also disagree with investor focus on defensibility over hardness. If you are investing in a generic software startup at an early stage, it is much more reasonable to ask them: "How many months/years of head start do you have over the competition, and how will you use my money to solidify this head start into an unfair advantage in your market?" than to ask them: "What stops someone else from doing this?" Because if they are an early stage, generic software startup, chances are that the honest, no bullshit answer to the second question is, "Nothing." And that doesn't mean that it would be a bad business to invest in.

skrebbel 6y ago
I fully agree, but I've yet to meet a VC that really appreciates honest, no bullshit answers. I've talked with plenty VCs and my impression is they strongly prefer founders that are happy to bullshit them, and ask questions particularly to test that. My theory is that the good ones do this on purpose, and the bad ones got bullshitted so often that they got used to it. I don't think it's a terribly bad strategy even. If you're looking for Travis Kalanick style "growth at all costs" type founders, then brutal honesty is pretty low on the list of important character traits.
- deleted 6y ago
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- linuxftw 6y ago
  > I fully agree, but I've yet to meet a VC that really appreciates honest, no bullshit answers. That's because you need to be able to effectively bullshit your customers and users. If you can bullshit the VC, well then surely, you can bullshit anyone.