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we think it is very useful as a strategic guide. if you think of etsy, twitter, lending club, workmarket, pollenware, and kickstarter, you might struggle to un

we think it is very useful as a strategic guide. if you think of etsy, twitter, lending club, workmarket, pollenware, and kickstarter, you might struggle to understand why they all fit our investment thesis it is because they are all networks that are large and growing and disrupt big markets (twitter - news, etsy - sale of artisinal goods, kickstarter - the studio model in entertainment, lending club - consumer lending, pollenware - working capital finance, workmarket - contingent labor)

fatbird 14y ago
I see how those examples fit the model of a community of engaged users that disrupts an existing business model built on a larger but much more passive community of users. What I have trouble seeing is the contrasting model where a startup is trying to build a user community that isn't highly engaged, or isn't trying to disrupt a big market. Would you mind giving an example or two of someone you rejected along those lines, or does your strategic guide cut differently than I'm expecting?
- fredwilson 14y ago
  the vast majority of the opportunities we pass on are a community that isn't large enough or engaged enough. i don't want to name names because that would be uncool to those entrepreneurs and companies. there are examples of businesses we see that are trying to serve the existing status quo and those are also not that interesting to us
  - fatbird 14y ago
    I understand about not naming names, but your explanation makes sense. Thanks.
- 001sky 14y ago
  I'm not the author, but asking people to explain actions they did-not-take is kind of bizarre. "why did you not cross the unamed road and the unspecified time...yesterday" has a million infinite answers. The purpose of having a "thesis" is to not waste time over-thinking in exactly this manner. If that makes sense.
  - fatbird 14y ago
    "Why didn't you fund that startup" is exactly the sort of question Mr. Wilson should be able to answer--and he did below, generally. You're right that the thesis is a test. My question was because it wasn't clear that there was actually a way to fail the test, or at least I wasn't clear on what Mr. Wilson viewed as failing the test. I didn't ask why he didn't do something that hadn't occurred to him, I asked why we he didn't do something on which he makes a pretty deliberate decision. As I mentioned, in my own experience I heard a lot of "it's a move-fast environment", and I realized that I had no idea what that meant. It's like saying "be tall"--meaningless without a baseline or a standard of comparison, and yet everyone kept throwing around the phrase like it was a concrete observation.
    - 001sky 14y ago
      yes, it seems there are two kinds of thesis: (1) a forward - must be falsifiable to filter (2) a afterward - need-not-be-falsifiable cya (a/k/a rationalization) Fred seems to be communicating a variant of (1) fairly credibly; although many VCs sgravitate toward variations of type (2).

fatbird 14y ago

I see how those examples fit the model of a community of engaged users that disrupts an existing business model built on a larger but much more passive community of users. What I have trouble seeing is the contrasting model where a startup is trying to build a user community that isn't highly engaged, or isn't trying to disrupt a big market. Would you mind giving an example or two of someone you rejected along those lines, or does your strategic guide cut differently than I'm expecting?

fredwilson 14y ago
the vast majority of the opportunities we pass on are a community that isn't large enough or engaged enough. i don't want to name names because that would be uncool to those entrepreneurs and companies. there are examples of businesses we see that are trying to serve the existing status quo and those are also not that interesting to us
- fatbird 14y ago
  I understand about not naming names, but your explanation makes sense. Thanks.
001sky 14y ago
I'm not the author, but asking people to explain actions they did-not-take is kind of bizarre. "why did you not cross the unamed road and the unspecified time...yesterday" has a million infinite answers. The purpose of having a "thesis" is to not waste time over-thinking in exactly this manner. If that makes sense.
- fatbird 14y ago
  "Why didn't you fund that startup" is exactly the sort of question Mr. Wilson should be able to answer--and he did below, generally. You're right that the thesis is a test. My question was because it wasn't clear that there was actually a way to fail the test, or at least I wasn't clear on what Mr. Wilson viewed as failing the test. I didn't ask why he didn't do something that hadn't occurred to him, I asked why we he didn't do something on which he makes a pretty deliberate decision. As I mentioned, in my own experience I heard a lot of "it's a move-fast environment", and I realized that I had no idea what that meant. It's like saying "be tall"--meaningless without a baseline or a standard of comparison, and yet everyone kept throwing around the phrase like it was a concrete observation.
  - 001sky 14y ago
    yes, it seems there are two kinds of thesis: (1) a forward - must be falsifiable to filter (2) a afterward - need-not-be-falsifiable cya (a/k/a rationalization) Fred seems to be communicating a variant of (1) fairly credibly; although many VCs sgravitate toward variations of type (2).