{"id":1911,"date":"2020-04-06T02:43:40","date_gmt":"2020-04-05T21:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saravanan.org\/?p=1911"},"modified":"2020-04-13T15:03:48","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T09:33:48","slug":"startup-investing-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saravanan.org\/startup-investing-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Startup Investing 101"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I am a startup entrepreneur. Before starting my fund raising, I spent hours pouring over information available for entrepreneurs raising funds. When I realized that I was still lacking understanding of how investors think, I started going though content written for the wannabe early stage startup investor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have distilling my discovery in this living document that is being updated continuously, as I get new insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Startup investing is very counter intuitive. The investment intuition you developed elsewhere will be counter productive here. If you get into startup investing without understanding it well, you will lose your shirt and kill the startups you invested in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know this post is a long and dense. But we entrepreneurs like our investors to be at least as intelligent, intense, hard working and competent as we are. If not better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note to entrepreneurs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most of the points here were taken from Y-Combinator’s school for Startup investors (link at the bottom of the page). YC works with some of the best founders from all over the world. They assume that the investors will be talking to top-notch founders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of us may not have this much purchase power with the investors. However, your job is to become such an exceptional founder that you can command the kind of respect a YC founder gets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note to investors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your job is to find the best founder your money can buy. The only way you can do it is to build a fantastic reputation for yourself. When you have a great reputation, exceptional founders will find you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You want to fund the kind of founders who select their investors very, very carefully, based on their reputation. These founders are capable of taking away all your bargaining power. This is a good sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People quoted in this post<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Silicon Valley’s early stage investors<\/h4>\n\n\n\n