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VCs Are Destructive Predators

51 points| silexia | 5 years ago |joelx.com | reply

26 comments

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[+] threeseed|5 years ago|reply
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.

[+] silexia|5 years ago|reply
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.

[+] spurdoman77|5 years ago|reply
The article reads like a hate piece, doesnt really contain any argumentation. Yeah I hate broccoli too.
[+] dgut|5 years ago|reply
Not all broccoli taste bad. Some broccoli can be tasty. It depends on the qualities of the individual broccoli and your execution.
[+] gHosts|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
Lifestyle businesses over aggressive hockey stick growth inflated by VC money dumps.
[+] Gibbon1|5 years ago|reply
The human wreckage is the dark side of all this.
[+] jaksmit|5 years ago|reply
Pretty useless, over-generalizing piece.

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

[+] cvhashim|5 years ago|reply
Did a vc get triggered by this and flagged it?
[+] rllin|5 years ago|reply
lol it is so rare for a company that goes belly up to hurt someone's career
[+] scottporad|5 years ago|reply
I’d say that’s about right.
[+] silexia|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] valuearb|5 years ago|reply
“ 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.

[+] jaksmit|5 years ago|reply
yeah and PE is not VC...