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Who is your dream investor?
- Harj 20y agoIf you could have anyone, VC or angel, invest in your startup who would it be (YC excluded)? For me I think it'd probably be either Ron Conway or Ram Shriram - they seem to be the closest thing there is to a bridge between traditional angel money and VC.
- sharpshoot 20y agoHey Harjy - Jeff Bezos would rock. Very few investors would bring the wisdom bezos brings. Legend.
- danielha 20y agoI'm not exceedingly familiar with too many VC names at this point, but I'd second Ram Shriram. Dave Cheriton would also be a great person on your side, but he's more of an advisor. For VC, John Doerr from KCP&B comes to mind.
- python_kiss 20y agoJeff Bezos once described John Doerr as the center of gravity in the Silicon Valley :)
- dawie 20y agoJeff Bezos, Jason Fried, Tim Oreilly, Michael Arrington, Paul Graham All of these guys are my heros
- theudude2002 20y agoMy absolute favourite is Guy Kawasaki. He's a genius. Micheal Moritz and Paul Kedrosky also would be exciting to work with.
- danielha 20y agoI'm also a Guy Kawasaki fan. He and YC's own pg have contributed heavily to my idealogies regarding creating a successful product.
- sharpshoot 20y agoGuy writes amazing books, no offence, but whats guy's investment trackrecord? Reid Hoffman or Peter Thiel would be great guys to get investment from. Reid has an incredible trackrecord - last.fm, digg, facebook, friendster etc
- danielha 20y agoThat's why I didn't jump to name him as a "dream" investor. He just has a lot of good things to say which I respect.
- theudude2002 20y agoI don't look solely on trackrecords. Business is hard work but to some extent also luck. Hits in the past are no guaranty for future hits. Guy believes that entrepreneurs can change the world and make it a better place. Sounds quite naive but to me a vision is much more motivating than money and trackrecords.
- Elfan 20y agoNo one. I would prefer to be able to grow a business that is profitable, not one desperate for an exit strategy before funds run out. I've seen what happens when a company tries to gamble on getting bigger and fails (investment bankers are not nice). With VCs you trade time (to find them) and control in exchange for money and contacts. That is often a good and necessary trade but one I personally would not like to need to make.
- Harj 20y agoYou're going confusing two things here. Raising investment for your company is not the same as having a business model dependent upon acquisition/exit strategy. Remember ever investor dreams of getting stock in the next Google - the one piece of their portfolio that will make up for all the other losses combined. A big hit of nature will come either from a massive acquisition (like YouTube - but just how many acquisitions have there been on that scale? The media hypes these up a lot but that distorts the actual perception of the regularity with which they occur) or from running a sustainable business e.g. Facebook that can grow by itself.
- danielha 20y agoUnless you're confused on investing vs. acquisition (refer to Harj's reply), does this mean you plan to bootstrap the entire company yourself?
- Harj 20y agoYou're going confusing two things here. Raising investment for your company is not the same as having a business model dependent upon acquisition/exit strategy. Remember ever investor dreams of getting stock in the next Google - the one piece of their portfolio that will make up for all the other losses combined. A big hit of nature will come either from a massive acquisition (like YouTube - but just how many acquisitions have there been on that scale? The media hypes these up a lot but that distorts the actual perception of the regularity with which they occur) or from running a sustainable business e.g. Facebook that can grow by itself.
- pg 20y agoSequoia.
- Harj 20y agopaul would you pick sequoia over angel if you were early stage and it was the first round of money you were raising?
- pg 20y agoSequoia in a second, if they actually offered at that stage. If a startup was super good, so good that what a top VC offered was rounding error compared to what the startup could do for itself, they might be better off with angel money, because they could name their terms, and they'd probably get a better valuation. Google did that for their early rounds. But few startups are that hot.
- Harj 20y agothis article certainly provides v strong support for your view http://www.imitrust.com/thepit/2007/01/25/sequoia-capital-the-entrepreneurs-entrepreneur/
- dfranke 20y agoAm I restricted to people who are actually in the seed or VC business? If not: Woz.
- Harj 20y agoHmm interesting question. I suppose there is no need to restrict but I would say that as great as Woz is - would he really add more to your startup than an angel investing veteran like Ron Conway? Investing is as much about bringing a list of contacts to the table as it is about anything else.
- dfranke 20y agoIt's more about street cred than anything else. I want an investor who will make people think "if he's putting his money into this company, it's worth checking out". A knowledgable VC can bring me to other investors/acquirers. Someone like Woz could bring other investors to me.
- gustaf 20y agoAfter hearing Fred Wilson talk I'd definitely say Union Square Ventures. At least your best east coast option, together with First Round.
- michaeltrincal 20y agoAfter reading about his investment style and bootstrapping background (and huge sales), Jesse Rasch. Also, I don't think there are other Angels like him in Canada, unless I missed some - you guys in the US have lots.