Entrepreneurs – don’t hate the VCs or be jaded about them.
I used to do a little bit of that too, but having a negative feeling doesn’t achieve anything productive.
When you keep hearing the “no”‘s, it’s so easy to get jaded about the whole thing. I’ve been there.
But the harsh truth is, it’s more likely that it’s on you, not on them. Your company may not be just there yet – in terms of traction, momentum, or buzz.
Yes, buzz does count. If you’re a company everyone is talking about – awesome. If the VC heard of you a few times, you still have a big leg up. Why? Because you’ll have a place in their mental space, which is extremely limited.
VCs are busy too. Your Wednesday 10am Zoom pitch meeting might be a life-or-death event for you. But for the VC, it might be one of 6 pitch meetings scheduled for the day. Hearing new pitches is often only a small part of the VC’s job anyway. They need to raise money from LPs, put off constant fire from their existing portcos, write those mandatory Medium and twitter posts and maintain that “thought leadership”, go to social events or travel to speak at conferences.. all of these on top of taking the kids to soccer practices 3 times a week.
Not saying the VCs are perfect; there are lazy VCs too, just like there are lazy people in any profession. The point is VCs have very limited mental bandwidth towards you as a new company, and the onus is on you to make it count.
If you couldn’t have them commit this time – that’s OK, move on, don’t be jaded about anybody (but also don’t beat yourself too much either), keep searching – the goal is not to satisfy everyone in the room, the goal is to find the one that says yes (another tired dating/marriage analogy here 🙂