| Let me throw in one other tip for founders looking to get funded: do not ignore regional VCs. Most of the stories about "how VC works" are 10, 15 years out of date. The cultural "sense of things" lags behind the reality. We found this out the hard way. In fact, contrary to all expectations and myths, VCs (outside perhaps of the top 50 or 100 firms?) read their emails and take cold meetings. They have to. Every region in the world has some clone of Silicon Valley - technical universities and accelerators and incubators and funds - and most of them have very little deal flow or exposure to outside opportunities and ideas. The guy from a second tier French city part-funded by an Economic Development Agency has as much luck getting into a deal with Union Square as you do. But he still has money to invest. So most of the VCs outside of a small, narrow set do answer emails, are glad to be approached, and are basically glad to see you if you've got anything at all which is interesting to say. It doesn't cost much to try, either. It's the price of an email. Yes, warm intros to top tier VCs are really handy. But that's also why the top tier VCs are so massively subject to group think and wind up collectively dropping five billion dollars on electric scooters and stuff like that. Everybody is human. Everybody is here to do the deal. At the top of the chrome towers are men and women in shoes and socks trying to look good to their management. Nothing behind the curtain, no wizard of oz. Do what you can. Don't break yourself for the myths. Do intelligently bet the odds! Tech is going to be the dominant story in human history for the rest of our lives in almost all scenarios. It's not a bad industry to be in. It's just the financial side of that industry is really heavy on the mythology and maybe that's holding us back now. |
Will be raising on an idea that makes me look at least a little bit like a lunatic in four weeks’ time, so keen to see how this is born out!