

Why You Will Fail When Raising Money - bigthboy
http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/29/venture-capital-presentation-entrepreneurs-finance-mistakes.html

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MicahWedemeyer
You will fail because VC money is a myth. It's like winning the lottery. Sure,
it happens, just not to _you_

Build your idea without it. You're building a website, not a nuclear power
plant. You don't need a couple million in funding. Get serious.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
It's like winning a lottery if you're raising for the wrong reasons, at the
wrong time, or in the wrong market.

Wrong reasons- Not for growth but to "build a prototype"

Wrong time- Not seeing growth or the opportunity where the money could clearly
make you a leader

Wrong market- Very few markets warrant VC money. Think again- Can what I'm
building have a potential 9 figure exit or 10x money in. That requires a very
very big market. "Oh it's a 6 billion dollar market." rule of thumb ill
occasionally use with no specific scientific backing: is your TAD (total
addressable market) smaller than Google's recent quarterly revenues?

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
No offense, but have you personally raised VC money? I see from your profile
that you live in Silicon Valley, where they tell me such things are possible
(although I'm still highly skeptical). Here in Atlanta it's definitely just a
myth.

For the average Joe here on HN, the chances of raising VC money are about as
good as the chances of getting drafted to a baseball team. Maybe you can get
angel money, and by angel I mean "Mom & Dad", but even that's a risky bet.

You're much better off just working on your startup and bootstrapping off of
revenue & other-work money.

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mgenzel
I heard opposite advice: e.g., spend more time talking about the product and
less on the size of the market. And while yes, "Investors don't want you
learning on their nickel", I do think they're more forgiving of very early-
stage ventures (the right funds, of course).

