Andy Tang compares venture fundraising to marriage, drawing on nine years of marriage and 17 years in venture. He warns founders against chasing the deepest pocket, citing Denmark's two-minute divorces as a cautionary tale. Both marriage and fundraising require genuine connection, not just financial gain.
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Rocking it. All right, good. So basically everyone here hasn't heard the talk, right? Oh, you have heard it, right?
No.
You haven't? Okay, good. Somehow I thought you have. Good, right? I just want to get a sense. The people who heard it are— They're gone. Okay, great. I don't remember what I told them anyway, so it's great. The funny thing is the slides are the same every time, but the stories are different. Okay? Good. So I've been married for 9 years and we have 2 kids. I've been in venture for 17 years. So at some point I started comparing the similarities between Fundraising, financing, and dating/marriage relationships, right? So the premise of this talk is based on kind of comparing these 2 things somewhat lightheartedly, but there is some truth behind the similarities, right?
Yeah.
Okay, good. So I pulled this from the Huffington Post from 2014. So I didn't make this up, right? This is why getting married is tough. Anyone who's married here? Great, we actually have 3, 4 people, great. They're married to each other. Great, we should separate these 2. In case I reveal too much, they start fighting. So generally people are getting married later and later, right? And it's getting tougher because people are just not in a hurry. So for many reasons, whether it's you have to have like 5 different degrees before you could get a job, or you have to work 5 jobs before you could afford a wedding. Right? Or there are just too many options, people can't make up their minds, right? Yep?
Just noting that people are getting divorced faster and faster too.
Yeah, there is a way to unwind the transaction and go back up again, right? So although that would— wouldn't that make it easier for people to get married because you know you could get out very easily?
In Denmark you can get divorced in 2 minutes and it only costs $100. It's like snap online.
That's like getting married in Las Vegas, you can also get married in 2 minutes.
It's like— and it's so cheap and you have no like— you can just snap, see ya.
So people should get married in Las Vegas and get divorced in Denmark is the takeaway, right? The other thing is— You always hear a marriage is based on a strong foundation of friendship, right? So oftentimes people don't want to put their friendship at risk, so people don't get married. So number 6, number 1. All right, let's keep moving. So you want to pick your partner and follow the money trail. Despite this, you should marry for love, not for money. Both in the marriage sense and for fundraising, right? Don't just take the money from the deepest pocket or the person who gives you the most money, but you want to have some relationship with the person who funds you. Make sense?
Yeah.
Who marries for money anyways, right? It doesn't exist. That's a cynical view and a fairy tale. All right. So let's talk about venture financing, right? So this is the serious business. So after this class you'll have a lecturer from UC Berkeley to talk to you about the various classes of financial instruments startups can use for their business, but I want to list it here. Yes? It was yesterday. Oh, good, so you already had it, awesome. I'm glad you had it because that class should really come before this class and I thought we mixed it up this time, but I'm glad you had it.
