Where your VC can't help
(aka things founders need to do themselves)
VCs are notorious for saying “how can I help?”
The last two weeks I've talked a bit about ways you help your VC help you - with customer introductions and with giving you useful input during meetings. There's plenty more a VC can do for you, but it's also important to recognize what a VC can't do for you. Some of these seem like they wouldn't need to be said, but all of them have come up through the years!
Here four things that apply to most companies, and in a future week I'll share some that are specific to developer tools.
I can't tell you what product or company to build
Sometimes, after a pass, a founder will say "what can I build that you would back?"
Here's the truth: If I knew exactly what company should exist, and how someone should build it, I would do that!
I do have products I wish existed and areas I'm interested in. I'm happy to bounce ideas around, share what I've seen, and ask questions to push deeper on an early idea. But at the end of the day, I can't say "you should do this one."
You're going to need to believe in what you're doing for the next ten years - and that needs to come from you!
I can't find your first engineer
I think this misconception comes from the VC side. A lot of multistage/growth funds heavily market their platform and recruiting teams. VCs can definitely help as you hire your first executives, and can connect you with great recruiters. VCs can also help you with the logistics (offer letters, compensation levels, people ops challenges). VCs can talk to your early teammates about their reasons for backing a company. There's lots of hiring related things that VCs can help with.
But when you are starting out, you need people who want to build the unknown with you. They are betting on you (just like I am). It's easier to get someone to bet on you when they've worked with you before. It de-risks the experience for you and for them. If you haven’t worked with them maybe you’re connected through projects or other experiences.
The pool of people who want to be (and will thrive) as one of the first 5-10 engineers at a startup is quite small, and they know how important their relationship to the founder will be. At the end of the day, if you can't convince them to work with you, I definitely can't.
The best founders have already lined up some of the people they want to build the product with, and often say "I'm ready to get building - the team is ready to go once the company is set up and we're funded." This makes fundraising easier, too - after all, why raise when you don't have a team to spend the money on?
I can't help you ship
In the early days of a startup, velocity is one of the most important things. Being able to ship and experiment helps increase the rate of learning. But I'm not inside the day to day experience of your company. All I can tell is "are you shipping, or aren't you?"
If you are shipping and you're still not able to keep up with demand, that's a great problem. You raise more money and hire more engineers. Things feel fast and need to go faster. I’m helping you get more resources, not helping you ship.
If you aren't shipping, I only have very blunt tools to help you debug. I have yet to experience a company that felt slow where the problem was not enough engineers. The next thing people go to is "we have the wrong process," and I have yet to see any process magically fix it either. It's nearly always a people related problem, and the only thing that helps is getting the right people in the right roles.
I can't make someone use your product
In my piece on customer introductions, I specifically mentioned that VCs can make a warm introduction, but cannot close a deal for you. The same logic follows for end users and smaller customers.
Early on, getting feedback is important! I can (and will) make connections to potential users to get you feedback. I'm happy to use some social capital to ask someone to try it out. But once they've tried the product, if the feedback comes back "this isn't useful to me," I can't push much harder. They have an obligation to keep building their own company with the best tools they can get!
This set of areas where VCs can't help apply to most companies. In a future week I'll share some that are specific to developer tools. Do you think I'm wrong here, or have a VC who did a great job on one of these? I would love to hear more!