the earnest ambitious kid's guide to investors

PG had a great post back in the day called the Hacker’s Guide to Investors that detailed how to understand, relate to, and work with early-stage venture capitalists. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and wanted to tack on a few things, particularly for young people interacting with this corner of finance for the first time. I’ve noticed that the founders who find raising venture capital awful are often the ones who have trouble separating their personhood from the persona and mentality they need to adopt to successfully fundraise. If this sounds like you, I recommend reading about Kegan’s stages of adult development (specifically stage five, the interconnected mind). More tactically though, here are some fundraising things to know: 1. Fundraising is brain damage, so spend as little time doing it as possible 2. Create an alter ego who you don for fundraising purposes 3. Don’t spend a lot of time with VCs if you don’t need VC $ 4. Only talk to investors with decision-making powe

PG had a great post back in the day called the Hacker’s Guide to Investors that detailed how to understand, relate to, and work with early-stage venture capitalists. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and wanted to tack on a few things, particularly for young people interacting with this corner of finance for the first time. I’ve noticed that the founders who find raising venture capital awful are often the ones who have trouble separating their personhood from the persona and mentality they need to adopt to successfully fundraise. If this sounds like you, I recommend reading about Keg