Seed stage VCs stress waaaaay too much about competition. Most markets are enormous and not winner-take-all.
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My favorite story is from a friend. Got an email that just said, “Aren’t there already other startups like [company] dominating the insurance space?” Insurance. A multi-trillion dollar market.
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Anyone asking you to fill out 4 pages at seed stage has no idea what they're doing
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Turns out it’s not incredibly difficult for people who have made a lot of money outside of startups to raise a $10m fund from Chinese and Arab LPs
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Everyone talks about the Bitcoin bubble. The proliferation of $10 - $50M seed funds is the real bubble.
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20 and 2 for two guys with a $20m fund is just wacky incentives all around
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Mostly also it's just hard to learn how to invest on your own. Most industries train talent via mentors. Why would investing be any different. That's my main problem with most two wacky dudes funds
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Not a world I understand fully, but even from this side of the table it’s clear who is going it alone
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I love that a VC asked you to do their due diligence lol.
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The sad thing is I actually filled it out, then they didn’t invest
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too funny, I’ve never seen a VC ask for information in that way, aside from financials if available. Most seem to hate that competitor slide with all the logos on the xy graph as founders always put their logo in high tech, high differentiation sector
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Most VCs are very reasonable and wouldn’t dream of asking that.
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agreed. most prefer to look at market/competition through a non-founder lens as well
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Can I be your FOMO consultant please? I’m a professional at this. By the way are you still holding all your
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No sold all TSLA and dumped it into Lambda haha
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Smart man! I always tell people the best ROI on an investment is themselves

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Agree with this best use of time and money always!
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@acecallwood correct for 2 reasons: 1) if you survive long enough for “competition” to be an existential threat, it means you’ve likely gotten past many of the other, more likely ways your company will die. In other words, it’s a good problem to have. -
2) competition is also a signal that you (may be) on to something.
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3) you have little to no control over what your competition does, and therefore every second of mindshare you give the competition has a huge opportunity cost — it’s a second of mindshare taken away from growing your business.
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"Control what you can control and influence the variables." Best advice I've gotten was from an Army Ranger on the SF Q Course. If not over stressing over things you can't change works for professional soldiers, I'll subscribe to the same.
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Yes. Very Stoic.
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