The good and the bad of unbundled vc’s 2022
The Good and the Bad of unbundled vc's 2022.
Four categories:
Openness
Investing
Treating people right
Legal issues
Openness/building in public/posting every day -
Good - people really seem to respond to openness. There is not much transparency in VC. There aren't many other people doing this. It helps build an audience and empathy with people before I've even met them.
Bad - I had coffee with a friend and they asked how it was to build in public. I said it was easy when everything was going well. That evening was when I was described on Landscape as "the reason why British VCs get a bad reputation".
Good - serendipity. Many people have contacted me and said they have inbound requests about investment or their product after being mentioned on LinkedIn.
Bad - one VC was upset after I publicly committed to a startup. They accused me of disintermediating them because they were trying to raise directly from clients for that deal and it made it too easy for people to invest directly with the startup.
Good - serendipity meetup. It was great to meet so many interesting people, the atmosphere was just people making friendly connections, I know at least one person got work from this and one person got investment 😉
Investing -
Good - when I left my previous firm, I didn't know if anybody would be interested in talking to me because I am tiny in the VC world. I've had an incredible response from founders and have better opportunities to invest than I've ever had. Thank you everyone!
Bad - the direct counterpart to this is having to say no to founders who have great, highly investable businesses. It may look like I don't think you will succeed. That's far from the truth. I am not infallible. I will get some things very wrong.
Treating people right -
Good - it feels right. People respond to it. It's not that difficult.
Bad - giving feedback. It's hard to give feedback that is helpful. It can upset people. It takes considerable time and energy to do it right. I don't always give it as much time as I should.
Legal issues -
Bad - you may have seen me mention meeting professional advisers from time to time. Sadly this is lawyers. It consumes time, mental energy and money.
Good - once you realise you are not prepared to be pushed around and there is something you can do about it, it is energising standing up for yourself. That feels good.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
