No doubt about that, but I still think it is worth highlighting for people (like myself) who pound the ground for funding and get discouraged by all the "No."
I don't take it that way. It's a time optimization strategy. Fundraising is like dating, and outbound is a full-time job. Instead "make her chase you." You'd be surprised how much more people are "invested" positive value bias by having to search out a deal. C'est la vie.
For outbound, an eventually-surviving solid startup has to pitch ~ 60 times if doing it in an semi-targeted manner with a little experience. Cisco pitched 100+.
The bottom line is that interest-based snap judgements are unreliable. There are very few people with the both the experience AND the laser-guided trend-seeking intuition to know what has a shot.
Here's the kicker for entrepreneurs: ideas don't matter, execution somewhat matters. Serially building as many companies as one can to a reasonable level of quality service and sustainability for as cheap as possible seems far more likely to land a hit. That means cash-flow positive, lower the overhead, the better. No white elephant apps guzzling $100k/month in AWS bills. Think cheap on yourself, but as quality as possible to the customer for what you can: really lean.
