I've gained the impression that there is a higher risk of imbalances that disadvantage the founders occurring outside the Bay Area. It feels like the presence of lots of experienced founders (not to mention their willingness to advise others) in the Bay Area means that there there is a far smaller chance that the founders will be naive/ignorant enough to fall foul of these kinds of terms.
It's certainly a risk here in the UK.
There are even companies here that will charge founders £500 (~$720) to pitch to potential investors, and a 5% "success fee": https://www.lbangels.co.uk/companies/costs
I've definitely seen this. I've done a lot of financings in the Valley and have been on the board with companies that did so in New York. The NY investors seemed much more transactional whereas the Valley investors seemed to play a longer game.
Which isn't to say the valley folks are necessarily your friends!
Tech investment barely exists outside of Silicon Valley, and when it does, the terms are horrible. In my former city, many companies still ended up flying out and courting investors in San Francisco because the local scene was so bad for it (even though we had several local "startup accelerator" and incubation programs).
I also just think VC terms are bad in general, and I think their intentionally exploitative nature prevents a lot of good things from happening.
SV is the dominant market for funding. NYC is credible but still not ideal (and some of the best NYC firms do a lot of investments outside NYC). It's a power law distribution...SFBA, then NYC and London a lot lower down, then a long way down with a few places (LA, Seattle, Israel, Beijing/Shanghai for Chinese companies, etc.) punctuating the cliff. And indeed, the terms I've seen from non-SFBA investors are invariably far shittier than anything from SF...valuations are sometimes comparable, but lots of stupid hair on non-SFBA deals, and the bad non-SFBA investors are way way worse than the bad-SFBA investors.
VC terms have gotten less bad over the past 15y, at least among the best firms.
While SF and SJ lead the pack, it's far from a power law distribution. To be fair, much of the venture deals in Boston / San Diego are life sciences / biotech, and that does you relatively little good if you're a software startup.
Totally agree about terms though. Non valley investors tend to target much lower valuations and stipulate weird conditions. This is partly a function of outsized outcomes being fairly rare in tier 2 and tier 3 markets though, so it's not exactly irrational for investors to assume a lower EV for a startup and price it accordingly.
What you really lose is this honest-keeping function that you get when there's sufficient competition for deals. Fear of being excluded or seen as "unfriendly" to founders tends to keep potential bad actors in line, which reduces some of the deal hair and benefits the overall ecosystem.
A good solution to the issue of bad local investment scenes, or a good solution to the issue of exploitative "terms" on VC deals in general? I put terms in quotes because I'm using it broadly, referring more to the cultural expectations that come with accepting VC money than something that's necessarily an explicit, contractual element of the deal.
All of the above. What do you think solves all of these problems? (You also allude to what's being missed with "prevents a lot of good things from happening".) Can you give me your comprehensive platform or idea of a solution? You have a great understanding of multiple areas of the problem.
1) "Tech investment barely exists outside of Silicon Valley, and when it does, the terms are horrible. In my former city, many companies still ended up flying out and courting investors in San Francisco because the local scene was so bad for it (even though we had several local "startup accelerator" and incubation programs).
I also just think VC terms are bad in general, and I think their intentionally exploitative nature prevents a lot of good things from happening."
Which is incredibly packed with completely correct information. It shows a very deep level of understanding of the situation. You don't elaborate on "prevents a lot of good things from happening" but there are actually volumes behind those 8 words as well.
2) Looking at your immediate posting history, I find your suggestion on Twitter being forced by "open[ing] up computer access and intellectual property laws so that the content stream can be combed over by anyone who is interested in doing so, with or without Twitter's permission" (I hadn't seen it before I came to my previous conclusion about your level of insight) extremely sage. In fact, it reminds me of the philosophy behind "FRAND" (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) requirements to license. It's extremely reasonable. (Despite currently being greyed-out due to downvotes.)
3) your pithy response
>>tinalumfoil 1 day ago
>>Being a founder (or co-founder or startup employee) means taking a decade out of your life for low pay and financial instability for the chance of having stake in a successful company. If you're not wealthy you're not in a position to be a founder in the first place.
reply
>cookiecaper 1 day ago
>Someone should really inform the college kids who keep applying to incubators like YC...
reply
shows a deep understanding.
4) you have 10570 karma and have been a HN user for 2797 days - 7 years.
5) I agree technically with your recent comment history on slack.
6) actually I've looked through a bit more, all of your comments are fantastic, including the ones on VC.
I don't know what else I can say. I don't have you confused for anyone: I came to my own personal conclusion based on your comments which I read.
If you don't want to reply to your question publicly, since I see your insightful comments are routinely downvoted, you can email me at the email listed in my profile.
Not sure how much more I have to flatter you to get your insights. There's nothing sarcastic about anything in this post - you know how insightful you are and what you do and don't know about.
Anyway my request was:
>What do you think solves all of these problems? (You also allude to what's being missed with "prevents a lot of good things from happening".) Can you give me your comprehensive platform or idea of a solution? You have a great understanding of multiple areas of the problem.
with respect to VC's not spreading out. if you have no thoughts whatsoever, that is fine. just because someone can identify a problem doesn't mean that person can see a solution. I'm just curious what you think.
It's certainly a risk here in the UK.
There are even companies here that will charge founders £500 (~$720) to pitch to potential investors, and a 5% "success fee": https://www.lbangels.co.uk/companies/costs