Below is the summary of all the answers I received to my recent post entitled "tell me why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs". There is a shorter and easier to stomach version on Xconomy if you prefer, here. I have tried to keep my role as editor limited to re-organising, so this remains true to the commentary. I would add that most or all of these entrepreneurs had real, hands-on experience with (often prominent) VC's, sometimes through multiples companies and fundraising. And yes, I also plan on writing a feature about the "good side" soon...
The VC - Entrepeneur relationship seems damaged. Whilst
business partnerships gone bad and company failure can lead to fallout, this is
dfferent. I wanted to find out why that was and used the blog to ping the
entrepreneur community to try and understand this better, listen to my audience
as it were, and share the feedback.
As with all articles of this kind, it is plagued by generalisations and
simplifications. In trying to do justice to the sixty detailed and mostly
confidential responses that I got, I probably lost some of the colour and
detail. But for anyone interested in rebuilding the social contract with
entrepreneurs and getting our VC mojo back, however, the scale of the problem
should be apparent. Clearly as VC's our job is not be loved but to contribute
in building great business and return money to our shareholders. Read on
regardless; as you will see, status quo is not an option.
A common answer I got was "sour grapes". As Richard Jordan put it "failures
breeds frustration and there is a natural tendency to spray the blame around.
Externalise guilt as resentment, combine it with some old fashioned finger
pointing, and there you go." Many VC's excel at that too. Sometimes anger
stems from the "sheer exhaustion from being told "no" too many times". Now
let's dig deeper.
Poor first impressions
Richard Jordan (read
him) says: "probably more than half of the VC pitches I have done have
involved participants on the VC side who have behaved in a rude and disrespectful
manner". Arriving late, cutting out early, reading blackberry, constantly
interrupting pitches, taking calls, you name it. Some of the pitching
experiences border on the ridiculous, as evidenced by a young founder who got
invited to pitch for fifteen (yes, fifteen) minutes with five minutes Q&A,
only to find the meeting started ten minutes late and was not to be
extended...
The absence of feedback loop is a common theme with entrepreneurs griping
about "dozens of unanswered calls and mails, from people they met. If nothing
else works, what are your PA's for ?". Another common gripe is the need to be
dealing with the associate who needs to sell his deal internally and is often
insecure and not clear himself on his chances of getting the deal done.
Even in early meetings, the lack of "empathy with and experience of the
startup and the sacrifices involved" can leave entrepreneurs fuming. Finally,
many entrepreneurs complain about a lack of confidentiality with their pitches
sometimes "landing on competitors' desks days after the meeting". In a recent
example, a well known General Partner interrupts 50 minutes of cross questioning
with this casual statement: "by the way, I am personally invested in a new
startup who are targeting this segment ".
Getting strung along or left at the altar
"Raising capital depletes far more energy than investors realize", says one
entrepreneur. "Getting a "no" is actually fine from an entrepreneur point of
view (one has to be rejection-proof anyway), but to preserve their opportunities
many VC's tend to string along entrepreneurs forever, blatantly lying about deal
status only to let it fall apart at the last minute , wasting an entrepreneur's
time and energy".
Many investors appear to be "vague on their decision and engagement process,
which tends to be liquid". Some VC's promise term-sheet which never come,
others withdraw at closing (the worst I personally heard was an SMS turndown by
a "tier one" VC followed by a competitive investment), others still don't bother
checking conflicts of interest. "VCs are too opportunistic in their behaviour"
says one experienced entrepreneur.
A common gripe concerns the lack of clarity (or absence) in the rules of the
game. Some companies are forced to jump through endless hoops to get a tiny
round done whilst others raise a ton of money at seed with no substance. VC's
pretend to do seed but then say no to everything that is early and want
revenues, customers, a business model and a team. Entrepreneurs are confused
and sometimes angry about this, as they feel fundraising is like a marathon with
no end, when the hills keep getting steeper along the course. "The whole process
leaves me with this feeling that landing funding is nothing more than getting
lucky with the right pitch on the right day with the right person in the room"
says D. It makes you feel like "a sort of magic and certain incantations and
artistry is required, yet despite that "investors often still fail to ask the
right questions, the hard questions".
Getting a raw deal
"Taking capital does feel a bit like making a deal with the devil after
all". Entrepreneurs fundamentally want to change the world and dealing with
the Money Men is often a compromise they would rather do without.
"The entrepreneur is a bit like a child who's just learned the rules of chess
- he's studying the current move intently, but he's rarely thinking far ahead.
The VC is an old hand at this game - he knows its patterns intimately and can
see how it'll develop far into the future. The entrepreneur tries to play well,
but the terms he fights for often turn out not to be important, while the terms
he thinks are innocuous can surprise him in unexpected ways. Unless things at
the company go astoundingly well, the entrepreneur comes away feeling like he
was played - taken advantage of by someone far, far more experienced at this
particular game." Clauses like participative liquidation preferences,
anti-dilution, aggressive reverse vesting, board control or simply shareholders'
rights come up frequently, with good reason.
"My own VC's have been great. That said - like many entrepreneurs, I've only
realized some of the longer-term implications of the documents I've signed well
after the fact. This was enough to make me wary".
Great (but misguided) Expectations
"Many entrepreneurs want an investor to fund the idea (equivalent to a tv
production house looking for funds from a commissioning editor to make a show,
and generate a profit from it). It often takes them a long time to realise that
such VCs don’t exist. By which time they are bitter and tired and blame the VCs,
rather than their own lack of understanding" of what it takes to get VC
funding.
David Smuts believes there are two kinds
of VC's: "Careerists VC's" and "Entrepreneur VC's" and two kinds of
Entrepreneurs: "Real Entrepreneurs" and "Wannabe Entrepreneurs". "Entrepreneur
VC's behave in the best interests of the business they are investing in" whereas
Careerist VC's put their own career prospects first". "Wannabe Entrepreneurs
either hate all VC's because they reject their business idea", or "suck up to
all VCs because they want their money". Long story short: The goal is to match
Real Entrepreneurs with Entrepreneur VC's.
Unwanted advice, poor communication and lack of operational
sense
"While VCs are always happy to dish out advice, this feels disingenuous from
people who have never actually built a company or had a knockout success as an
investor. Learning from mistakes is far less useful than emulating success".
One entrepreneur goes further in accusing VC's of seeing everything through the
lens of money: "often time they have zero operational experience (how to launch
a company/product or manage customers), don't understand marketing beyond just
building their own brand, and see money as their ticket for everything."
VC's are often ex lawyers or bankers and some have a tendency to feel safe
with "experienced suits" that sometimes do nothing but drive the burn rate up
and compound cash-flows problems. Entrepreneurs are often "driven, creative
types who want out of larger organizations" and whose traits map poorly to those
of many VC's. Ultimately since many of them don't understand the businesses
deeply, they "try to make up this particular information asymmetry with legal
enforcement (sic)".
Some VC's are not that shy about it. One partner in a tier I fund described
his role in this way: "Industry experience is not that important. I see my role
on a board is to challenge every decision the management make". Here's a
variant on the same theme: "I don't give a s**t about the company's strategy, my
job is to come here once a month and check what you are doing with my money".
QED.
Different objectives and timeframes
"It takes patience and time to build a great business, and target returns and
timeframes (e.g. five times in five years) can get in the way. On the other
side, entrepreneurs burn out and blow up all the time, so it's tough to keep
both sides aligned and together for a long time."
Sigurd says "short investor timeframes to meaningful exits means forcing
businesses to scale too much and too fast (and offsetting this risk through a
portfolio approach), whereas the entrepreneur must offset the market and product
risk by slower movement and something akin to agile development." David agrees
on this natural misalignment of interests: "VCs need home runs, and
entrepreneurs need singles at least on their first couple of companies."
The going really gets tough when entrepreneurs lose their original sponsor.
"The new guy is either too junior, does not know the business or feels he has
the right to wash his hands of the mess left by his departing partner".
Arrogance and lack of empathy
At the end of the day, most entrepreneurs completely understand that
objectives are not always to be aligned, and that VC's work for funds that need
to return capital. What they have trouble with regardless, are "double
standards". One entrepreneur who has raised money multiple times says: "a lot
of VCs do things no regular employee would dare to do but are largely
unaccountable for those behaviours: forgetting about board meetings, showing up
20 minutes late, bullying the team or CEO, being generally unavailable, paying
no attention in meetings because they are arranging a golf game on their
blackberry, failing to read the board pack before the meeting, so the actual
meeting is remedial in nature." the message seems to be: "don't treat me the
way I see fit to treat you".
Net-net, VC's are too often "out of touch with the reality of
entrepreneurs". "They are often times elitist, clashing with the very
scrappiness of their entrepreneurs". Arrogance is the word. "I was told
forcefully "you will fail" and that I should join another startup ... funded by
the very same VC". "I spent 4 years in poverty ignoring my family and my
friends to get the company to this point, and now they want me to vest my
shares." Yet another: "I have mortgaged my house, I have spent all my money,
my family lives on pizza coupons and now you are telling me you want customers
and a live product to boot ? Why don't I call you back when I have gone public,
bozo. You call yourself a risk taker ? You want 30% of my company when all the
risk has been taken out ?" (I added the pizza coupon piece for effect, but you
get the idea).
Finally, entrepreneurs feel VC's are "crap at sharing the wealth",
recognising "how tough it is to create value" or "properly re-incentivising
managers who gave up many years of their lives, effectively abusing a position
of power and often manipulating entrepreneurs by threatening their
reputation".
Bottom line: "VC's really don't take any personal risk but expect everyone
else to..".
Add to this some "dumb practices" such as demanding board remuneration and
monitoring fees or "submitting ridiculous expenses" to complete a picture that
betrays a complete lack of empathy.
Dark Side of the Force
Finally, some ugly business behaviour. A fairly common practice seems to be
what you might call "slow strangulation", whether by design or not. "An equity
investor will knowingly under-capitalize your startup only to gain control of it
once the opportunity manifests itself by use of a wash-out round; milestone
financing and abusive board control are used for similar tactics. As a
consequence, myself and others now prefer to bootstrap/self-fund rather than
taking any amount of early-stage capital that will not *clearly* take the
company to the next level."
This is a common gripe with smaller funds, who have badly under-performing
portfolios and little follow-on reserves, and who fall back on such slow
strangulation of businesses they fund by trickling money, gradually washing
every one else out, and hoping that 50% ownership for little money invested will
somehow pay back for the rest of their portfolio. Smaller regional,
government-backed funds get a particularly bad rep in this area. Lacking
experience and confidence, they rely on punishing paperwork and self-anointed
gurus to help them through the hard process of building successful
companies.
Entrepreneurs have come forth with other dubious practices, including
outright lying about the state of the business when refinancing, disclosing
confidential information or personal confidences, negotiating on behalf of
management and forcing deals through, making a mockery of governance rules. One
systemic problem appears to be a failure to represent the interests of the
company in board meetings, but rather short-term investor interests. "This is a
plague on the industry and makes the board worse than useless to the company."
Another entrepreneur identifies what he calls "classic VC tricks" such as
"firing the team just before an acquisition, term sheet bombs, hiding or
obscuring key information, manipulating the team to try to change ownership or
board composition, changing deal terms just before closing". He adds: "These
destroy alignment and trust, and without some alignment and trust the necessary
working relationship and motivation is destroyed".
The worst I got related to VC's pushing to recover shares from the heirs of a
deceased co-founder under a reverse vesting provision. As the contributor put
it, "it will take a lot of good karma from a lot of VC's to make up for this
one". I was stunned.
Conclusion
Last words to entrepreneurs from Rory Bernard: "Choose your VC's with care. Good ones
transform your business, bad ones wreck it".
And to VC's: "tread softly,
remember that in a position of power, you can do many sensible things but a few
stupid ones and end up with a "George Bush" problem, and as a result the
approval rating of Dubya."
<-- Pierre, Olivier, Pierre, Justin
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