vc and relationships

these days aside from receiving job offers, my vc friends will often reach out to me once in a while to check what i’m building and whether i have decided to build a company

more often than not, i can see a bit of joy flit out of them when i say i’m committed and love my job

it’s a bit funny, but it’s actually a good reminder and story that at the end of the day, the job of a vc is finding companies to fund

we often forget that

we often think that companies have to do outbound intensively to raise their next round and i often see founders raising purely out of despair

that’s the formula for misery

when you operate in scarcity, you operate in life preserving mode, which often gets you the worst deal possible and leaves you in a state of negative leverage

a bad investor on your sheet is worse than having nothing

this is a notion that many startups don’t get, even in the angel stage, which arguably is the most important leverage you can have

hearing “some random angel investors put money in us” is magnitudes different than “andrej karpathy wrote us an angel check”

an angel check is easy to write, so be mindful about who you invite to your first stage

when you meet your customers, your angel is going to be their insurance

when you meet your future employees, your angel is going to be another layer of insurance

if you can convince the top 1% to invest in you, you can convince anyone to either use your product or join your team

some of my friends played this card so well and i always put them at the top of the place i’d join had i not been at livekit

be mindful about who you invite to your round, especially in your earliest stage, don’t just look for money

on another note of fundraising, it’s the art of nurturing a relationship

i find it warming that a handful of people whom i admire would just put their money on me if i say i’ll build my own company

while that future isn’t near, it shows to me i have upheld my principles correctly and have been a person of trust when it comes to key times

there’s a reason why the first round is called the friends and family round

it is for friends and family

trust takes years to nurture and bear fruit, so don’t chase short term results and be transactional, chase real relationships

a similar mirror to this is in sales

the holy grail of sales is organic inbound

your product is just so good that people need to use it and need to find it

it’s a leverage and a multiplier that shows how much you can actually scale later on

i find this extremely interesting at livekit, since we used to be a well profitable organic inbound product, but through outbound, managed to keep growing more than double every quarter

this is an extremely high signal that shows how much potential you can have

when you raise, you are essentially selling your company shares, the holy grail of that is also organic inbound

so know how to play your game correctly, build relationships and build trust

when time comes, it is the multiplier

i guess at the end of the day, my general advice, to myself in the future and to my close circle:

don’t rush, build something great, and be a gravitational force

*and this comes without saying: please be honest, to yourself and to others