[jasode]

>It's no surprise founders rank speed highly while investors don't.

There may be some nuance missing in the slide.[1]

Based on the article's text, that right column should actually be subtitled "what VCs think the founders rank as most important" instead of "important to VCs".

The left side is self-reporting (founder's ranking). But the right side is a "Theory of Mind"[2] exercise (what VCs think founder's ranking would be).

I'm not a VC but it seems to me that that "network/rolodex" should be higher rank than "speed". I wonder if founders rank speed above "rolodex" because many startups' bank accounts are near zero and they can't make payroll next week if the VCs drag their feet. Financial duress scenarios like that during fundraising may make founders overemphasize "speed of a deal" to the detriment of other more important factors.

[1] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*VvTVys39uVMHqtbZ

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

[wpietri]

At least anecdotally, I don't hear much from founders who are that close to zero. In my experience, speed is important because slowness drastically increased cognitive load and somewhat increases risk during fundraising. And also because fundraising is a distraction from why they got into it.

One way to think about it is in terms of a graph of number of VCs they have to think about/deal with at once. They're going to start the fundraising process with a list of firms, people, etc. Let's say that each week they take on n new items. If it takes 4 weeks to get an answer, they're juggling n*4 balls, many of the conversations in different states. Complexity goes up and/or throughput goes down. It's painful.

I suspect for entrepreneurs speed it also code for clarity, in that the "vc no" (and specifically the "California no" [1]) often present as slowness when it's really about something else inside the VC.

[1] http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2005/04/the_vc_no_and_t.html

[thrav]

I think it’s as simple as, VCs want to believe Founders care about the things they’re investing in heavily.

The same way we would all like to think hiring is about qualifications and skills, but really it’s almost always more heavily about relationships.