One of the things I dislike the most about the Venture Capital business is the endless "Let's continue the dialog" nonsense that gets dumped on entrepreneurs. Instead of just saying pass, this isn't for us, we get into sounds interesting, send me some data, let me kick it around, could I see the data in another way, let's continue the dialog. It sucks and is brutal on you.
The additional fallout from this is when you show up to my place and exclaim so and so at whatever venture partners is 'excited'. You pitch and they loved the story and thought you told it well. Can I call them to get some feedback, I ask. Sure, you say.
Me: Hey, how's things? Good to hear. Listen, I met with the gizmo guys and they indicated you are excited, love the story and want to dive in.
I then get the 50 reasons why the deal will be hard for whatever to do but they want to dig in anyway because the guys are smart and its good data for the files. This happens, sadly, all the time.
With few exceptions, nobody will tell you your baby is ugly. Instead we resort to the Chinese Water Torture approach to Venture Capital; endless dialog and no conclusions. And full disclosure, I've been sucked into this myself. I've been in situations where I haven't really understood the proposition so I've asked for endless information in trying to get it. With the benefit of hindsight, I should simply say, sorry this isn't for me and let everybody move on. My bad, I try to avoid this.
My tip, such that it is, is keep your cynic meter set to a ten until the check clears. Talk to everybody and when asked simply say we've spoken to whatever and from our perspective we believe it went well.
Assume they didn't like the kid.
