I’ll Never Forget the Day a VC Made Me Feel Like an Idiot
Are you being an idiot during your fundraising pitches, too?
Humans have a funny habit of underestimating the things we don’t understand. For example, consider a sport like NASCAR. Lots of uninformed observers will ask, “How is that a sport? It’s just people driving in circles.” What those people don’t appreciate is that driving cars near the peak of their physical limits is very different from daily driving. When you’re driving a car at 200 mph, seemingly minor details — like the changing weight of the gas in your tank or the temperature of the asphalt — can literally be the difference between life and death.
In the entrepreneurial world, something similar happens with venture capitalists. Maybe not the “life and death” part, but venture capital is a much more complex industry than most entrepreneurs tend to realize.
Count me among those entrepreneurs who, in his early days of building startups, didn’t appreciate the complexity of venture capital. I thought all VCs were the same: I thought they were people with tons of cash searching for the “the next Mark Zuckerberg.” I was supposed to be that exciting young entrepreneur — someone who could “razzle-dazzle” my way into getting investments using a slick pitch and lots of enthusiasm.
