What You'll Wish You Knew About Raising VC

Here are a few things every founder needs to know about raising venture capital. Number one, think of VC as a product that you're buying. You're the customer, and it's entirely possible that product is just not a good fit for your needs. You could have a perfectly good business, but it just may not be a good fit for venture capital and what they're looking for. The next thing is recognize that investors, they want to see growth curves and business models. Customers want you to build a product that solves their problem. You are much better off spending calories on solving your customer's problem in the early stages than the investor's problem. And then finally, when you are meeting with the VCs, one, they can tell you yes. The other thing they can tell you is no. And the third one is a maybe. And I'm going to suggest to you that a clear no is better than a misguided maybe. They're essentially buying time as you talk to other VCs, whether you get someone else excited. These misguided maybes usually ends up being a waste of time. So you've got to kind of be careful and detect the difference between a misguided maybe and should have been an actual no.