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No VCs have called to ask me my opinion, but I'm very ok with color.com imploding. IIRC, Paul Graham suggested that startups be described as questions. Color's
by raganwald 15y ago
No VCs have called to ask me my opinion, but I'm very ok with color.com imploding. IIRC, Paul Graham suggested that startups be described as questions. Color's question was, "Can we make ____, give it away for free, have it become really popular, and gather profile information we can monetize?"
So they now know that _____ is not really popular, and although they raised a tonne of money to do it, closing its doors quickly and moving on to other things is not a disaster.
Pivoting would be neat, but maybe they ought to just give the remaining money back to their investors and move along to the next idea.
- bartonfink 15y agoJust out of curiosity, do VC's call you to ask your opinion on things like this?
- raganwald 15y agoGiven my career, I would short the stock of any VC that asked me for investment advice.
- palish 15y agoOn the other hand, that just means you're statistically more likely to succeed on your next attempt.
- petervandijck 15y agoI don't think that's what it means, statistically :)
- aaronblohowiak 15y agoBayesian or frequentist? ;)
- hluska 15y agoComments like this are why I love this site so dearly! :-)
- petervandijck 15y agoDoesn't matter, a bad history in investing doesn't statistically mean that you're more likely to get it right the next time, that would mean that everyone gets it right eventually if they just keep trying, which isn't really how investing seems to work. Even if investing was a lottery, it past failures don't indicate future success.
- spicyj 15y agoEasier: short stocks that you think will go up. Avoid the whole VC problem entirely!