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How to put a VC in the hot seat
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 15y agoYou stand a very good chance of looking dumb if you walk into a real VC's office and ask if they're accredited.
- ceejayoz 15y agoA "real VC" is unlikely to be a "relatively new investor".
- tptacek 15y agoIf they call themselves a "venture capital firm" then there's no game theoretic win to asking if they're accredited. If they aren't, they can't invest anyways, so hot-seating them is dumb.
- T_S_ 15y agoAgree. Also the other questions are reasonable, but not heat inducing.
- Entaroadun 15y agoTo be fair he qualified the questions with "When the ball is in your court..." So the assumption here is that the founder has leverage.
- johnl 15y agoThose are good questions if I was sitting next to one in a bar and starting up a conversation maybe but since most of the questions can be answered on the VC's web site (including lists of companies they have already funded), in an interview I would concentrate on discussing my proposal.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoAn investor invests in the jockey and not the horse. Consider an investor like the saddle. If the saddle sucks, the horse and the jockey’s groin will be sore. This metaphor hurts my head. A saddle invests in a jockey?
- jamesbkel 15y agoI think the idea is that the investor is there to support a talented jockey (entrepreneur) against the turbulence of the horse (new business). Maybe this horse got outraced by another horse/jockey, but if the investor should have faith that the jockey can pick up the saddle and learn how to ride a new horse. Agreed, not the best analogy... especially because as I understand a lot more is invested in horses than jockeys (in actual competitive horse racing). But, I think that's the point.
- biot 15y agoAlso, I hate to think why the horse's groin would also be sore.
- danboarder 15y agoRead the VC's website first to answer as many of these questions as you can, and if you have remaining questions then ask those. But asking "When where you founded?" to a VC may only show you didn't do your homework.
- fvryan 15y agoya i don't think any of these questions are going to put a VC in the hot seat...
- TheRealReinH 15y agoIf by "hot seat" you mean "position from which to comfortably reject your pitch" then I think you're on to something.
- kmfrk 15y ago@pg: Please include subdomains in the link descriptions with Tumblr-hosted articles.
- mikeklaas 15y agoThere's no subdomain - OP used a tumblr.com/XXXX shortener
- kmfrk 15y agoInteresting; normally, shortened URLs are converted to their 301 destination on HN, but the same does not apply to Tumblr. Hence my confusion. Thanks for pointing it out.
- kloncks 15y agoAlso a problem with GitHub hosted blogs.
- jdp23 15y agoI strongly disagree with this post on two different levels. For one thing, starting out on a relationship with a potential future investor by looking for ways to put them in the hot seat doesn't feel like a success path for me. They will always be able to make things a lot hotter for you than the other way around ... so why go there? Secondly many the specific questions would go better in a post called "how to give a VC an impression that you don't bothered to prepare for meetings". When were they founded? It's on their web site. What's their background? Oh, that's on their web site too. Why haven't you done your homework?
- daniel-cussen 15y agoHalf of these are usually publicly available, and therefore homework.