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June 22, 2007
10 Things To Do When Your VC Pitch Flops
There are lots of posts in VC blogs about the art of saying "no". Just run "when vcs say no" through your favourite seach engine to see what we mean. The resulting hitlist is a big hint about what it's like when you deal with the risk capital crowd.
Now the thing is what's next when that happens. For a helpful answer we point to a recent post in the blog of famous founder Marc Andreessen. He suggests at least ten things to do when that happens.
First of all, it all depends on when the VCs said No.
If you were told "no" in 1999, I'm sure you're a wonderful person and you have huge potential and your mother loves you very much, but your plan really was seriously flawed.If you were told "no" in 2002, you probably actually were the next Google, but most of the VCs were hiding under their desks and they just missed it.
If they say 'no' nowadays, in a time when investing is more "rational" than either of those two eras, he offers some practical tips, many of which are about reducing risk for the investors.
Here's a couple of examples:
Try to raise angel money, or bootstrap off of initial customers or consulting contracts, or work on it after hours while keeping your current job, or quit your job and live off of credit cards for a while.The most valuable thing you can do is actually build your product. When in doubt, focus on that.
He ends by pointing out that "no" can turn to a "yes" at any time. Of course by then, the startups are often no longer looking for venture capital and are ready for growth capital from private equity funds or late stage venturers, but that is another story (actually just look up our posts on Spreadshirt, Meetic, VentePrivee, or king.com for some examples).
Read - The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 2: When the VCs say "no"
(pmarca blog)
Posted on June 22, 2007 05:26 AM | Posted to Being European | Permalink
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