
VCs Are Destructive Predators - silexia
https://joelx.com/vcs-are-destructive-predators/15897/
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threeseed
What's the point of posting this ? Nothing insightful or useful for founders.

"Work through your business model" as a growth strategy. Brilliant.

Paid acquisition has gone through the roof as Facebook/Google are increasing
monetisation. Content marketing has never been more difficult as more and more
companies compete for the same keywords. More and more startups competing for
the same customer.

It's not like founders like me are looking to give equity to VCs. It's because
it's getting more and more expensive to grow.

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silexia
Author here. My point is that founders should avoid VC's like the plague if
they can. Founders think taking $1m in funding validates their concept, but
only the market can validate your concept. Premature scale will feel good at
first, then destroy the founder and the employees who joined.

There are tons of methods to sell, and if FB and Google Ads (I am a Premiere
partner of both) are your first avenue of selling, you will get destroyed. Try
less expensive methods and only when you prove it elsewhere then try those
very expensive areas.

~~~
luc_
I'd be interested to hear your proposed alternatives, then. Small business
loans?

~~~
silexia
The best alternative to VC money is simply getting early customers to help
fund you. Do services contracting for them and you will learn a ton about
their needs and the problems your solution solves. You will iterate rapidly
and bring your business to actually solve customer problems.

Beyond customer funding, look at SBA loans. Or bank loans.

Avoid credit cards if you don't pay them off monthly. Your business probably
won't grow as fast as your debt will if you go this way.

I personally used a combination of using my own savings (dipped into about
$10k before my net worth started going up) in combination with customer
funding.

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spurdoman77
The article reads like a hate piece, doesnt really contain any argumentation.
Yeah I hate broccoli too.

~~~
dgut
Not all broccoli taste bad. Some broccoli can be tasty. It depends on the
qualities of the individual broccoli and your execution.

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gHosts
The solution is butter, apple cider vinegar and salt.

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Andrex
Directions unclear; applied apple vinegar to VC.

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gHosts
Now saute the VC in butter....

Bon Appetit.

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gHosts
I once had a chat with a VC bag man...

He said their policy was to invest in a 100 startups in the hope that one
would go viral.

The sooner the other 99 died and stopped bleeding the happier they were.

Go big or die soon was their policy.

If the 1 went viral, they'd make back all and way more than they lost on the
99.

The fact that 99 founders were broke and broken didn't bother them at all.

~~~
cvhashim
Lifestyle businesses over aggressive hockey stick growth inflated by VC money
dumps.

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jaksmit
Pretty useless, over-generalizing piece.

I wouldn't have been able to build my startup to the size it became without
venture capital support.

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cvhashim
Did a vc get triggered by this and flagged it?

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rllin
lol it is so rare for a company that goes belly up to hurt someone's career

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scottporad
I’d say that’s about right.

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silexia
Experienced founders agree with the post... Look up ScottPorad.com, he has
experience in tech and finance ranging from working with Paul Allen to
founding Icanhazcheezburger and failblog.

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valuearb
“ Private Equity investors are even worse than venture capitalists; instead of
destroying fledgling businesses, they destroy great existing companies. Sears,
Toys R Us, and a very long list of other companies have been destroyed by PE.
”

Uh, ok.

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jaksmit
yeah and PE is not VC...

