3 ms·

> just a little bit smarter and found your own startup does that work? how do you convince investors to give you money if you don't have a network/didn't go

> just a little bit smarter and found your own startup does that work? how do you convince investors to give you money if you don't have a network/didn't go to stanford?

petralithic 1y ago
Not all startups are venture-backed.
- throwawaymaths 1y ago
  most of those aren't startups, they're lifestyle businesses. (no shade to ppl who want to do that)
  - petralithic 1y ago
    Depends what you want to define startups as, "lifestyle" businesses are often just a derogatory term that VCs use that don't mean anything in real life.
- godelski 1y ago
  I don't think you answered the question. I'm pretty sure everyone knows this. But I think most people also know that it can be very difficult to pitch investors and that this is exponentially more difficult when you don't have the backing of some ostentatious pedigree.
  - petralithic 1y ago
    > this is exponentially more difficult when you don't have the backing of some ostentatious pedigree. This has not been the case these days, to be honest. While a pedigree helps, the playing field for investment has been much more level than, say, a few decades ago. Harder, sure, but exponentially more so, definitely not.
    - throwawaymaths 1y ago
      Its not so much that. Without pedigree, you get a pitch if you have something real and are lucky With pedigree, you can pitch science fiction and get funded.
      - godelski 1y ago
        Yeah, this is the big problem I see. There's some startups I see that in their pitches have some big red flag like needing to violate the laws of physics. Yet, I see these funded. It is extremely rare that I've seen such grotesque errors and this not have founding members from the MIT/Standford-esque crowd. A notable example is Rabbit R1, who clearly pitched science fiction, but then again Jesse Lyu has connections to Y-Combinator. On a side note, I lost a lot of respect for several researchers when I saw them promoting or talking about how impressive the R1 was after the announcement. I don't expect the public to be able to tell what's Sci-Fi (though there were clear signs of demo faking), but researchers (being one myself) should have clearly known such claims required orders of magnitude more advanced tech than what was currently available.

> just a little bit smarter and found your own startup does that work? how do you convince investors to give you money if you don't have a network/didn't go to stanford?

petralithic 1y ago

Not all startups are venture-backed.

throwawaymaths 1y ago
most of those aren't startups, they're lifestyle businesses. (no shade to ppl who want to do that)
- petralithic 1y ago
  Depends what you want to define startups as, "lifestyle" businesses are often just a derogatory term that VCs use that don't mean anything in real life.
godelski 1y ago
I don't think you answered the question. I'm pretty sure everyone knows this. But I think most people also know that it can be very difficult to pitch investors and that this is exponentially more difficult when you don't have the backing of some ostentatious pedigree.
- petralithic 1y ago
  > this is exponentially more difficult when you don't have the backing of some ostentatious pedigree. This has not been the case these days, to be honest. While a pedigree helps, the playing field for investment has been much more level than, say, a few decades ago. Harder, sure, but exponentially more so, definitely not.
  - throwawaymaths 1y ago
    Its not so much that. Without pedigree, you get a pitch if you have something real and are lucky With pedigree, you can pitch science fiction and get funded.
    - godelski 1y ago
      Yeah, this is the big problem I see. There's some startups I see that in their pitches have some big red flag like needing to violate the laws of physics. Yet, I see these funded. It is extremely rare that I've seen such grotesque errors and this not have founding members from the MIT/Standford-esque crowd. A notable example is Rabbit R1, who clearly pitched science fiction, but then again Jesse Lyu has connections to Y-Combinator. On a side note, I lost a lot of respect for several researchers when I saw them promoting or talking about how impressive the R1 was after the announcement. I don't expect the public to be able to tell what's Sci-Fi (though there were clear signs of demo faking), but researchers (being one myself) should have clearly known such claims required orders of magnitude more advanced tech than what was currently available.