
How startup founders and CEOs rate the top VCs in Silicon Valley [pdf] - wesleytt
http://docs.yougov.com/docs/YouGov_Entrepreneurs_Survey_2013_Participants_Summary.pdf
======
heterogenic
The happiest moment of my entrepreneurial life was after my second exit, when
I realized that I could self-fund/bootstrap my next venture comfortably and
never deal with a VC again.

Meddling, conniving & power-drunk busybodies, all of them.

~~~
ulfw
Opposite for me. I wish I took VC money. I bootstrapped my startup. We failed.
And part of why we failed (besides obviously being cash strapped) was the
early validation that we were lacking (from a customer side, but also from an
investor/VC side). One shouldn't underestimate the experience and connections
those guys have.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> And part of why we failed (besides obviously being cash strapped) was the
> early validation that we were lacking (from a customer side, but also from
> an investor/VC side).

If you lack customer validation, you don't have a business. Period. Beyond the
seed stage, venture firms are investing to scale nascent businesses. Without
customer validation, you aren't going to be able to raise a meaningful amount
of capital from investors. Put simply, investor validation is a function of
customer validation.

The great thing about customer validation is that you don't need lots of money
to get in front of customers, and sometimes you don't even need a finished
product at all. No VC is going to do this legwork for you.

------
minimaxir
> _Last year, we interviewed a select group of entrepreneurs about their
> experiences working with venture capital partners—what they wanted from
> venture investors and what they were actually getting from top tier VCs in
> Silicon Valley. "_

What's the sample size here, especially since every dependent variable is
expressed as percentage of the # of people who took the survey? A "select
group of entrepreneurs" does not sounds like many, and that could seriously
result in misleading data.

~~~
arjunnarayan
Also it is really crucial _who_ took the survey. Was it entrepreneurs who were
actually funded by the VCs? it says "worked with", but I'm not completely sure
what that means.

~~~
cjbarber
Right. I don't trust this _at all_.

If the respondents were CEOs of companies funded by a16z and Sequoia etc, then
great. But if they were, then why the fuck do they need to recruit for
respondents on hacker news?

To entrepreneurs: ask friends or CEOs funded by the VCs you have questions
about.

------
lowglow
We started a small review site for funding. Would be amazing if you added your
experiences to share with others.

[https://vc.techendo.com/](https://vc.techendo.com/)

------
fredophile
This doesn't have enough info to draw any meaningful conclusions. Other people
have already raised potential issues about the sample group. The report
glosses over too many details to be useful. Take the chart on page six as an
example. Are all respondents rating the VCs or are people only rating VCs they
raised money from? Why was USV left off of the chart when it was in earlier
charts? If founders don't care much about mentorship (see chart on page four)
why are they bothering to include this chart? Wouldn't it be more useful to
compare VCs on a metric founders seem to care about like network or industry
knowledge? The x axis is also mislabeled but I don't think that should lead to
any confusion in this case.

------
jpeg_hero
My guess may a16z has such great numbers is the perception that they are
exceedingly loose with capital.

All the CEOs out there are basically saying "man, if a16z was backing me
they'd give me $50m without blinking! They must be great to work with"

------
IBM
Anyone know the IRRs on Andreessen Horowitz's funds?

~~~
yurylifshits
It's too early to tell, they are just 5 years old.

------
guest666
Is it me? or the pdf is no longer available for download?

Thanks.

~~~
namenotrequired
Same problem here.

