A short note on founder-friendliness.
We (VCs) often claim to be founder-friendly but what…does that mean?
The mechanics of the VC industry is such that multiple firms must compete for the best investment opportunities, and one of the ways to attract entrepreneurs with a choice is to brand yourself as “founder friendly”. Being founder-friendly is not the abdication of responsibility to deliver honest, critical, often difficult feedback to them. It is treating the founders as your customers and optimising for their success above your own. (Ironically, this helps guarantee your own.)
Founder-friendliness is not — should not be — a marketing term. It should come from the understanding that everything we do is in service of great entrepreneurs. Understanding that investors will not build the future, but exist to support those who will. Of course, this does not mean they should turn a blind eye to irresponsible behaviour.
And even more than the many things they can do, e.g., helping with organisational set-up, recruiting, corporate connections, etc., investors have an obligation to build a trust-based relationship with founders and to offer timely and valuable feedback when it is warranted.
Backing a super-smart, eager, hard-working team is not nearly enough: it’s doing the hard work of providing substantive feedback, but doing so with empathy. This gets to the essence of what being “founder friendly” should mean.
The objective is not [necessarily] to be a founder’s best friend but to be the partner that helps them be their best selves. And if this means having some hard conversations with bruised egos and hurt feelings in the short run, but with an eye towards longer-term payoffs, then it will be worth it.
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