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There's a difference between building a product and building a company. Mentors are huge in building a company, and like it or not, building a company is a peo
by wheels 17y ago
There's a difference between building a product and building a company. Mentors are huge in building a company, and like it or not, building a company is a people-process.
Just to give an example -- right now we're preparing our investor deck and exec summary. You can read books all day long on that, but the comparative worth of having an experienced entrepreneur that can read over what you've got and critique it -- and then put you in touch with the people who you want to read it -- is much higher.
- 1gor 17y agoThe traditional vc-based path to building a company is sub-optimal, this has been the topic much covered on HN. Product-based way of building a company seems to be the future. The companies that went directly to customers first on merits of their product and then attracted attention of rolodex-waving vcs include google, 37signals and probably pg's viaweb (sorry for non-original examples). Remember, internet IS a network already. Even mentor knowledge is available through Google. Leverage this network and you're in business. You do need some hard technical knowledge (and books) to achieve this, though. On the other hand, stuffing startups with executive 'mentors' who bring 'experience' but also grab tons of call options is a venerable vc industry tradition. As somebody who went once through a vc-funded startup that was later killed by the same vcs, I remain ever sceptical about their motives and see this article as a piece of vc propaganda.