Matt MacInnis, who founded Inkling and now leads operations at Rippling, argues that Silicon Valley's "never quit" culture benefits VCs more than founders. He says entrepreneurs should recognize when to quit or reset their cap tables and timelines instead of clinging to failing ventures, and seek seed investors patient enough to let a first startup fail.
Chapters
We talk in Silicon Valley about never quit, but that is complete, absolute venture capital bullshit. The incentive of venture capitalist is to put money into your company and milk you dry. So the only logical desire that they would have is for you to keep trying against all odds. The Silicon Valley mindset is not pro entrepreneur, it's pro venture capitalist. I think it's important to say out loud that you should fucking quit. You should reset the clock, you should reset the cap table. Because trust me, product market fit, when it arrives is insane and it's exciting and you should purs it and never delude yourself into believing you have it. When you don't, it is dangerous and regrettable. Everybody's acting in accordance with their incentives. And the venture capitalists have very strong, enduring incentives that have shaped the dynamic of how Silicon Valley works. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just really, really important to point them out and scream at them. For the 25 year old entrepreneur who has no fucking clue how this stuff works, as a founder, when it's time to throw in the towel on your business and you're so obsessed with giving money back to the cap table, I always remind the entrepreneur, if you're in the seed investing game, your forecast cast is zero. Any seed investor who doesn't take that stance is off the rocker anyway. Seek investors who play the long game, who want to be in your second and third company and are willing to take a bet on the first one and let it go to zero so that you can get on with stuff.
