Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by DenisM 4867 days ago
>How do you even define the problem you're trying to fix?

The name of the problem is "uninformed decisions". Lacking real information about startups, the VCs rely on signals - social signals, their own prejudices, "common sense", that sort of thing. Had they had understanding of the field, or understanding of the emotional rollercoster that is building a new business, there would be much less reading of tea leaves. In fact, a hypothetical competent VC would inquire until he finds the weaknesses both in businesses plan and the team approach and morale, so that he knows what the problems are, rather than run away when he finds some.

To put it shortly, the problem is "dumb money".

The answer to this problem is "smart money". Raise funds from the insiders of the industry you're working in - at least they know half the game. And also from the startup veterans, as they know the other half of the game.

Dumb money has no place in the early stage business funding. The reason why dumb money saturates the startup discussion is the same reason why the interest rates are low - dumb money is at oversupply, so they are trying to get into every credible investment opportunity.
1 comments
Retric 4866 days ago
The problem is there is so much 'dumb' money out there 'smart' money is just noise. If you have 50 million to invest then investing 200k in 250 company's at random is a perfectly reasonable choice. And 50 million is a tiny slice of a ridiculously big pie, people spend close to that doing due diligence on really big deals.
link
DenisM 4866 days ago
Yep, that's why I meant by "oversupply". The dumb money is rather plentiful, and quite desperate for a ROI, so it's thrashing around making lots of noise.

It's also an interesting departure from the 19th century when capital was scarce and labor was plentiful. These days qualified labor, or as we call it now, "talent" is in short supply and capital is plentiful. It's as if the capitalism has ran its course and produced what it could in the end - abundance of capital. Not a bad time to be on the "talent" side of the table.

link