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<opine>Team is mostly BS. The chances that even a really good investor, who is not actually in the game, can accurately determine an early stage startup's comme

<opine>Team is mostly BS. The chances that even a really good investor, who is not actually in the game, can accurately determine an early stage startup's commercial trajectory by magically intuiting from highly condensed summaries of multiple people's multiple decades of nuanced experience, is near zero. Yes, there is insight to be had there, especially at the pointy end of 80/20, but there are far more significant factors in most cases. Long term VCs will tend to overstate the importance of character due to survivor bias (ie. the successful follow-ons are the only founders they really get to know). IMHO most early stage investment is made based on hunches and hand-waving after doing generalist macro assessments of particular industries or trends. Frequently, faddish. GP's will often do this, raise a fund around it, then associates are sent out to get deal-flow and execute. Many startups will be get selected from an available pool with the established investment theme. This capital is largely sacrificial, and high miss rates are expected. Where things get serious at the personal level is in the mid to later stages where you start to see bigger figures being moved about and investors want a shepherd for their capital who has proven stable and long haul capable - things like the capacity not to suddenly live beyond their means, lose focus, drop it all and go to Vegas, crash and burn at HR management, or break down at the first signs of difficulty. That said, you also get mechanics being added like tranched deployment and fiscal/management oversight (eg. board seats) which are highly effective at mitigating risk even in a low-trust scenario. Most VCs are early stage and never play at this level. To put it bluntly: early stage is mostly noise. Mid to later stage, if they want the deal, they'll make it happen. It's your job to be so damn good they can't help themselves.</opine>

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> by magically intuiting from highly condensed summaries of multiple people's multiple decades of nuanced experience, is near zero One can’t guess the successes. But you can eliminate the duds who won’t make it to a Series A.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> by magically intuiting from highly condensed summaries of multiple people's multiple decades of nuanced experience, is near zero One can’t guess the successes. But you can eliminate the duds who won’t make it to a Series A.