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This is good. As someone who's watched this process many times, I can tell you he learned pretty much everything there is to learn about raising VC the first t
by pg 15y ago
This is good. As someone who's watched this process many times, I can tell you he learned pretty much everything there is to learn about raising VC the first time through.
The only thing that could make his advice inaccurate is that he was raising money for such a good startup. And in particular, one with traction. As he points out, traction trumps everything. So this is essentially a report on what it was like to travel through VC land in the express lane. The scary thing is, even then it took 4 months. It might have gone faster if he'd been on the west coast, but it still would have been a big time suck.
- ccollins 15y agoWhat are the biggest factors that increase the time suck? Amount of money you are raising, inexperience? Conversely, what consistently decreases the amount of time spent closing a round?
- pg 15y agoThe two biggest factors in the time it takes to close a VC round are how obviously good the idea is, and how much competition there is for the deal. The two are not entirely independent of course. By "obviously good" I mean obviously good to VCs, who as a rule tend to overlook the very best ideas because they seem crazy. So for example it may have slowed things down for Gabriel that he was working on a new search engine, because to many VCs it would seem crazy to try to compete with Google.
- fredwilson 15y agoIt is crazy to compete with google But crazy is good when combined with a good entrepreneur and some traction