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To me this is the most important sentence in the article. Just under 2/3 of their meetings, 65% resulted in no deal. That is 78 well placed, well funded, fully

To me this is the most important sentence in the article. Just under 2/3 of their meetings, 65% resulted in no deal. That is 78 well placed, well funded, fully informed NO's. In the end though none of those Nos matter. You realize that most people in the VC-funded world would suck Hitler's cock to have a 35% "Yes" rate, right? That's two orders of magnitude better than what non-connected plebes like most of us face. If I recall correctly, the average acceptance rate is well under 1%.

AndrewKemendo 13y ago
No doubt about that, but I still think it is worth highlighting for people (like myself) who pound the ground for funding and get discouraged by all the "No."
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  If the point of your previous message was "don't be discouraged by the rejections," it sure doesn't read that way.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    It read that way to me. shrug
  - midas007 13y ago
    I don't take it that way. It's a time optimization strategy. Fundraising is like dating, and outbound is a full-time job. Instead "make her chase you." You'd be surprised how much more people are "invested" positive value bias by having to search out a deal. C'est la vie. For outbound, an eventually-surviving solid startup has to pitch ~ 60 times if doing it in an semi-targeted manner with a little experience. Cisco pitched 100+. The bottom line is that interest-based snap judgements are unreliable. There are very few people with the both the experience AND the laser-guided trend-seeking intuition to know what has a shot. Here's the kicker for entrepreneurs: ideas don't matter, execution somewhat matters. Serially building as many companies as one can to a reasonable level of quality service and sustainability for as cheap as possible seems far more likely to land a hit. That means cash-flow positive, lower the overhead, the better. No white elephant apps guzzling $100k/month in AWS bills. Think cheap on yourself, but as quality as possible to the customer for what you can: really lean.
redler 13y ago
This is an interesting discussion, but as a side note, I have to say that is the one of the less likely Godwinnings I've seen in some time.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  It's not a Godwinning per se; Hitler just had a notoriously bad-tasting cock.

AndrewKemendo 13y ago

No doubt about that, but I still think it is worth highlighting for people (like myself) who pound the ground for funding and get discouraged by all the "No."

auctiontheory 13y ago
If the point of your previous message was "don't be discouraged by the rejections," it sure doesn't read that way.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  It read that way to me. shrug
- midas007 13y ago
  I don't take it that way. It's a time optimization strategy. Fundraising is like dating, and outbound is a full-time job. Instead "make her chase you." You'd be surprised how much more people are "invested" positive value bias by having to search out a deal. C'est la vie. For outbound, an eventually-surviving solid startup has to pitch ~ 60 times if doing it in an semi-targeted manner with a little experience. Cisco pitched 100+. The bottom line is that interest-based snap judgements are unreliable. There are very few people with the both the experience AND the laser-guided trend-seeking intuition to know what has a shot. Here's the kicker for entrepreneurs: ideas don't matter, execution somewhat matters. Serially building as many companies as one can to a reasonable level of quality service and sustainability for as cheap as possible seems far more likely to land a hit. That means cash-flow positive, lower the overhead, the better. No white elephant apps guzzling $100k/month in AWS bills. Think cheap on yourself, but as quality as possible to the customer for what you can: really lean.

redler 13y ago

This is an interesting discussion, but as a side note, I have to say that is the one of the less likely Godwinnings I've seen in some time.

StavrosK 13y ago
It's not a Godwinning per se; Hitler just had a notoriously bad-tasting cock.