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Be or have a co-founder with: - an affiliation with an ivy league school - a prior notable technology or business contribution, such as authoring a protocol (

Be or have a co-founder with: - an affiliation with an ivy league school - a prior notable technology or business contribution, such as authoring a protocol (or more recently an open source project) - some unusual circumstance such as family relationships that causes VC partners to care more about them than a random person - be obviously independently wealthy already - have been a founder or high level employee involved in a very successful vc-backed startup exit One or a combination of these will ease getting an initial investor and closing a seed round.

ragnarok451 4y ago
the advice nobody wants to hear but is actually true. ofc you also need to be highly competent yourself, but that is table stakes
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Being competent is not table stakes, how can they tell who is competent?
  - bredren 4y ago
    Some of the points I listed do require some level of competence. (Such as authoring a popular OS project, or not losing existing wealth through poor judgement) However, it does not necessarily mean the person has competence to be a good founder.
rexreed 4y ago
Long story short, nothing to do with your actual business or business model or innovative technology or hand-wavy "disruption" or large addressable market size or traction or any of the other things that VCs tell the plebs matter, when in reality they only matter if you don't have anything more valuable like the above. This is how companies raise ludicrous amounts of money without ever finding product-market fit, because of the Ivy league / family / prior possibly irrelevant past history matters more.
- spoonjim 4y ago
  > nothing to do with your actual business or business model or innovative technology or hand-wavy "disruption" or large addressable market size or traction I would take out "traction" from this. If a company has strong traction (that looks sustainable) it will outweigh everything else.
  - rexreed 4y ago
    It's hard to prove counter-examples of companies that have had significant traction but were unable to raise money, because, well they were unable to raise money. The only alternatives are those companies who have had large amounts of traction, were unable to raise money, but ended up being successful anyways by bootstrapping or finding some alternate method. But it's not generally / necessarily true that companies that have strong, sustainable traction will outweigh everything else because the counter-examples are just not obvious. Intuitively, I can imagine that there have indeed been companies that have had great / strong traction, but have no Ivy League management team, no VC connections, no real family strength, no past history of success, and none of the other things that were described above, and thus, despite their strong traction, they were unable to raise money.
    - spoonjim 4y ago
      The traction has to be able to be turned into money -- a consumer "rate the celebrity" app could have millions of users but not really be investable. But I haven't seen any cases where an investor says, "They have real traction, that can grow at venture scale and at strong economics, but I don't like the founder." It's just extremely uncommon. Usually "dislike of founder" (with all of its biases) comes when you have to put a lot of faith into the company, not where the company has already proven itself. Of course -- investors can simply be wrong about the growth potential or unit economics or sustainability of traction -- but that's different.
- junofan 4y ago
  It’s a seed round.
raunak 4y ago
I’m a college student @ an Ivy League school, and I keep hearing about how easy it is to take advantage of the name for VC money. I really don’t get how. Are there any actionable steps you could point me towards, other than getting involved with the school incubator? I’d love to learn more.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Tap the alumni network for Angel investors, for starters. Also, just having your university listed on your people slide will help. But you’ll still want warm intros to VCs, since cold outreach from Ivy students won’t necessarily get you past their filters.
- bredren 4y ago
  To clarify, I said it would "ease" getting an initial investor or close a seed round. I didn't say it would be easy. Fundraising is generally hard and much more so if you have never done it before. Despite what some are saying, even for seed capital it is probably not as easy now as it was this time last year. Even if you have advantages over other founders. As for steps, as another commenter mentioned, look inward. Seek out founders affiliated with your school or in your area of interest that have raised seed capital. Cold email them, ask for advice and feedback. If you want it, I'd suggest doing your best to put aside any potential advantage of your affiliation and expect to hustle like you don't. If you land the cash, the network won't help you find product market fit.

ragnarok451 4y ago

the advice nobody wants to hear but is actually true. ofc you also need to be highly competent yourself, but that is table stakes

whatshisface 4y ago
Being competent is not table stakes, how can they tell who is competent?
- bredren 4y ago
  Some of the points I listed do require some level of competence. (Such as authoring a popular OS project, or not losing existing wealth through poor judgement) However, it does not necessarily mean the person has competence to be a good founder.

rexreed 4y ago

Long story short, nothing to do with your actual business or business model or innovative technology or hand-wavy "disruption" or large addressable market size or traction or any of the other things that VCs tell the plebs matter, when in reality they only matter if you don't have anything more valuable like the above. This is how companies raise ludicrous amounts of money without ever finding product-market fit, because of the Ivy league / family / prior possibly irrelevant past history matters more.

spoonjim 4y ago
> nothing to do with your actual business or business model or innovative technology or hand-wavy "disruption" or large addressable market size or traction I would take out "traction" from this. If a company has strong traction (that looks sustainable) it will outweigh everything else.
- rexreed 4y ago
  It's hard to prove counter-examples of companies that have had significant traction but were unable to raise money, because, well they were unable to raise money. The only alternatives are those companies who have had large amounts of traction, were unable to raise money, but ended up being successful anyways by bootstrapping or finding some alternate method. But it's not generally / necessarily true that companies that have strong, sustainable traction will outweigh everything else because the counter-examples are just not obvious. Intuitively, I can imagine that there have indeed been companies that have had great / strong traction, but have no Ivy League management team, no VC connections, no real family strength, no past history of success, and none of the other things that were described above, and thus, despite their strong traction, they were unable to raise money.
  - spoonjim 4y ago
    The traction has to be able to be turned into money -- a consumer "rate the celebrity" app could have millions of users but not really be investable. But I haven't seen any cases where an investor says, "They have real traction, that can grow at venture scale and at strong economics, but I don't like the founder." It's just extremely uncommon. Usually "dislike of founder" (with all of its biases) comes when you have to put a lot of faith into the company, not where the company has already proven itself. Of course -- investors can simply be wrong about the growth potential or unit economics or sustainability of traction -- but that's different.
junofan 4y ago
It’s a seed round.

raunak 4y ago

I’m a college student @ an Ivy League school, and I keep hearing about how easy it is to take advantage of the name for VC money. I really don’t get how. Are there any actionable steps you could point me towards, other than getting involved with the school incubator? I’d love to learn more.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gnicholas 4y ago
Tap the alumni network for Angel investors, for starters. Also, just having your university listed on your people slide will help. But you’ll still want warm intros to VCs, since cold outreach from Ivy students won’t necessarily get you past their filters.
bredren 4y ago
To clarify, I said it would "ease" getting an initial investor or close a seed round. I didn't say it would be easy. Fundraising is generally hard and much more so if you have never done it before. Despite what some are saying, even for seed capital it is probably not as easy now as it was this time last year. Even if you have advantages over other founders. As for steps, as another commenter mentioned, look inward. Seek out founders affiliated with your school or in your area of interest that have raised seed capital. Cold email them, ask for advice and feedback. If you want it, I'd suggest doing your best to put aside any potential advantage of your affiliation and expect to hustle like you don't. If you land the cash, the network won't help you find product market fit.