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Founder’s Choice

80 points by vinnyglennon 5y ago

Zaheer 5y ago
Another similar project: https://www.backchannel.co/old-home https://www.backchannel.co/old-home
eatonphil 5y ago
Glassdoor for VCs? Very welcome. Right now I do that by asking around and searching HN for comments referencing the VC.
elite_mgmt 5y ago
Susceptible to gaming by cabals. For example, a set of fraternal VCs could encourage their fraternal entrepreneurs to skew the rankings in their favour and against the smaller seed fund rounds.
- axg11 5y ago
  If they're fraternal and supportive with the entrepreneurs they've invested in then maybe they deserve to be high up in the rankings! /s?
  - elite_mgmt 5y ago
    Its fraturtles all the way down
di4na 5y ago
Another version: https://www.landscape.vc/ https://www.landscape.vc/
gmays 5y ago
A similar site I've used before is https://www.vcguide.co/ https://www.vcguide.co/
carfacts 5y ago
Good Accelerators offer this to their cohorts as a service. Techstars, which I was a part of, has a login-required site where founders post their experiences. Pretty useful to save you time with VCs that won’t participate in your round because of sector, size, competing portco
Oras 5y ago
Looking promising. Are you going to make it just for VCs or there will be a section for angel investors?
- whymauri 5y ago
  If it registers on CrunchBase, it should appear on the site -- is my understanding from the blurb.
flyinglizard 5y ago
Aspiring founders: VC experience will change drastically based on: a) the partner you meet b) how badly they want you c) macro/fund context d) what’s your fit to them or the competitive environment around your company And it’s not always apparent what’s good and what’s bad, long term speaking. We’re deep into an A round meeting many funds and I can’t say any single one stands out. Sure some have better chemistry with us, but they are all playing the same book. (other than one who has been especially shit and crafty).
- yowlingcat 5y ago
  Good list. One you're missing is: e) how you're introduced Who intros you and how they're connected to the fund matters a ton. As an aside, I think it's true that they're all playing the same book -- with the exception of the very top. The playbook that the "deal guys" are playing and the long-term lead-the-industry game that the leaders are playing are different. The former will always say they're the latter but you will notice differences in the social network topology (as well as how they carry themselves and what their outcomes look like) which will clue you in.
g-unit33 5y ago
They verify using CrunchBase but lots of companies don’t put their vcs on their CrunchBase
dkfmn 5y ago
I don't think it's a particularly active community but http://thefunded.com/ http://thefunded.com/ started offering this in the mid 2000s
- yowlingcat 5y ago
  Nice find. I had used VCGuide before (mentioned in another comment) but I see a different set of reviews than I see in VCGuide -- always good to have more data here considering how thin it is!
rmbyrro 5y ago
> generated anonymously and verifiably People are so naive about how hard it is to really anonymize data and how surprisingly easy it could be to deanonymize it that I'd never trust it without: 1) Some serious explanations and scrutiny about exactly how their deanonimization process work 2) How data leaks are removed from logs and elsewhere 3) how data is aggregated and presented and what measures are taken to prevent deanonimization Edit: their FAQ is not nearly close to a "serious" discussion. And looking at their code is not an efficient way of learning whether it's a trustworthy approach.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  I agree with this, but why is anonymizing this data even important? If it's secure just for you, who cares? Maybe I'm missing something. --------- Updated ------------ I misunderstood the "review" part, but still. How hard is it to secure the name of the reviewer. I still don't think they need to be truly anonymized.
  - rmbyrro 5y ago
    I'd be worried about bad reviews. Founders don't wanna have a bad reputation in the small VC world. A bad review for a VC might piss them off. Pissing one VC off might be a recipe for earning bad rep. Numerous datasets have been deanonimized from aggregated stats, just by using correlations and other simple techniques...
yowlingcat 5y ago
Seems like a well intentioned product (certainly would have loved to have this tool prior to raising) but the level of data you're asking for that could get back to a founder will have a chilling effect on the negative reviews which will also happen to be the most valuable. I get adding the verification steps to make sure the data is "real" but if founders want to leave any feedback online about investors they've worked with (already unlikely), they're more likely to leave it on a forum like vcguide.

Founder’s Choice

80 points by vinnyglennon 5y ago

Zaheer 5y ago

Another similar project: https://www.backchannel.co/old-home https://www.backchannel.co/old-home

eatonphil 5y ago

Glassdoor for VCs? Very welcome. Right now I do that by asking around and searching HN for comments referencing the VC.

elite_mgmt 5y ago

Susceptible to gaming by cabals. For example, a set of fraternal VCs could encourage their fraternal entrepreneurs to skew the rankings in their favour and against the smaller seed fund rounds.

axg11 5y ago
If they're fraternal and supportive with the entrepreneurs they've invested in then maybe they deserve to be high up in the rankings! /s?
- elite_mgmt 5y ago
  Its fraturtles all the way down

di4na 5y ago

Another version: https://www.landscape.vc/ https://www.landscape.vc/

gmays 5y ago

A similar site I've used before is https://www.vcguide.co/ https://www.vcguide.co/

carfacts 5y ago

Good Accelerators offer this to their cohorts as a service. Techstars, which I was a part of, has a login-required site where founders post their experiences. Pretty useful to save you time with VCs that won’t participate in your round because of sector, size, competing portco

Oras 5y ago

Looking promising. Are you going to make it just for VCs or there will be a section for angel investors?

whymauri 5y ago
If it registers on CrunchBase, it should appear on the site -- is my understanding from the blurb.

flyinglizard 5y ago

Aspiring founders: VC experience will change drastically based on: a) the partner you meet b) how badly they want you c) macro/fund context d) what’s your fit to them or the competitive environment around your company And it’s not always apparent what’s good and what’s bad, long term speaking. We’re deep into an A round meeting many funds and I can’t say any single one stands out. Sure some have better chemistry with us, but they are all playing the same book. (other than one who has been especially shit and crafty).

yowlingcat 5y ago
Good list. One you're missing is: e) how you're introduced Who intros you and how they're connected to the fund matters a ton. As an aside, I think it's true that they're all playing the same book -- with the exception of the very top. The playbook that the "deal guys" are playing and the long-term lead-the-industry game that the leaders are playing are different. The former will always say they're the latter but you will notice differences in the social network topology (as well as how they carry themselves and what their outcomes look like) which will clue you in.

g-unit33 5y ago

They verify using CrunchBase but lots of companies don’t put their vcs on their CrunchBase

dkfmn 5y ago

I don't think it's a particularly active community but http://thefunded.com/ http://thefunded.com/ started offering this in the mid 2000s

yowlingcat 5y ago
Nice find. I had used VCGuide before (mentioned in another comment) but I see a different set of reviews than I see in VCGuide -- always good to have more data here considering how thin it is!

rmbyrro 5y ago

> generated anonymously and verifiably People are so naive about how hard it is to really anonymize data and how surprisingly easy it could be to deanonymize it that I'd never trust it without: 1) Some serious explanations and scrutiny about exactly how their deanonimization process work 2) How data leaks are removed from logs and elsewhere 3) how data is aggregated and presented and what measures are taken to prevent deanonimization Edit: their FAQ is not nearly close to a "serious" discussion. And looking at their code is not an efficient way of learning whether it's a trustworthy approach.

pedalpete 5y ago
I agree with this, but why is anonymizing this data even important? If it's secure just for you, who cares? Maybe I'm missing something. --------- Updated ------------ I misunderstood the "review" part, but still. How hard is it to secure the name of the reviewer. I still don't think they need to be truly anonymized.
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  I'd be worried about bad reviews. Founders don't wanna have a bad reputation in the small VC world. A bad review for a VC might piss them off. Pissing one VC off might be a recipe for earning bad rep. Numerous datasets have been deanonimized from aggregated stats, just by using correlations and other simple techniques...

yowlingcat 5y ago

Seems like a well intentioned product (certainly would have loved to have this tool prior to raising) but the level of data you're asking for that could get back to a founder will have a chilling effect on the negative reviews which will also happen to be the most valuable. I get adding the verification steps to make sure the data is "real" but if founders want to leave any feedback online about investors they've worked with (already unlikely), they're more likely to leave it on a forum like vcguide.