Ben Horowitz says founders kill their pitches by playing it safe. VCs want to see courage and conviction, not a watered-down plan designed to please them. A founder who shrinks their ambitions signals they don't believe in what they're building.
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The big mistake people make is they try to appeal too much to the venture capitalist. So, well, the thing. And that'll drive us crazy because it's a little bit of a sign of anti courage. So they'll put a plan and they'll be, okay, here's our plan for the next two years. And they'll have their financial plan. And I'll be like, well, if everything you told me before is true, then isn't this like a plan to fail? Because like, if you look at the market size and you look at the product and when it's going to hit and so forth, like, if all that's true, then this plan is like a tenth the size of what it should be. And they're like, yeah, but we thought you wanted to hear this because we know VCs like conservatism. And I'm like, well, the fact that you care what I like makes me not like you. And that's kind of. So that's the biggest mistake. Now that may not be a mistake with some other VCs, but for me, because courage is such an important thing. Anything that shows a lack of conviction or courage or belief in what you're doing is what always ends up worrying me. Like, either you believe it or you don't. Either you're committed or you're not. Either you have the courage to build the company or you don't. And it is a really high bar. I mean, like, you know, I'm talking like, oh yeah, I'm like King Courage, you know, like I was sweating bullets when I was CEO and I was like my guts were boiling and like I was up at 2 o' clock in the morning just like all you. And I know some of you are, you're sitting there silent, but you know, you were sweating and you probably go home tonight and start sweating. But like, so that's part of it. It encourages. And it's not that you don't feel fear, you feel just the cus. D' Amato has this great line where he says, look, the difference between a hero and a coward isn't what they feel, they feel the exact same thing, the exact same. It's what they do. And so we're just looking for people who not that don't feel the fear, that feel it fully, but then somehow find a way to do the right thing, the courageous thing, the hard thing, even if you don't know it's right at the time.
