Pond scum
I had breakfast this morning at a bar in the Santa Caterina market in Barcelona with Jono Bennett. He’s a writer. We were reflecting on similarities in our struggles to do our own thing. An email about a potential Fluidinfo investor that I’d recently sent to a friend came to mind. I wrote:
I had a really good call with AAA. He told me he’s interested and wants to talk to BBB and CCC. I then got mail the next day from DDD (of the NYT) who told me he’d just had dinner with AAA and BBB and that they’d talked about my stuff. So something may happen there (i.e., I’ll never hear from them again).
The last comment, that I’d probably never hear from them again, was entirely tongue-in-cheek. I wrote it knowing it was a possibility, but not really thinking it would happen.
But it did.
Things like that seem to be part & parcel of the startup world as you attempt to get funded. I have often asked myself how can it be possible for things to be this way? How you can have people so excited, telling you and others you’re going to change the world, be worth billions, and then you never hear from them again? (Yes, of course you have to follow up, and I did. But that’s not the point: If you didn’t follow up you’d never hear from them.)
How can that be? In what sort of world is such a thing possible?
I came up with a highly flawed analogy. Despite its limited accuracy I find it amusing and can’t resist blogging it even if people will label me bitter (I’m not).
First: startup founders are pond scum. Second: potential investors are a troupe of young kids wandering through the park with sticks.
The kids poke into the ponds, stirring up the scum. They’re looking for cool things, signs of life, perhaps even something to take home. They’re genuinely interested. They’re fascinated. The pond scum listen to their excited conversation and think the kids will surely be back tomorrow. But it’s summer, and the world is so very very big.
The pond scum are working on little projects like photosynthesis, enhancements to the Krebs cycle, or the creation of life itself. All the while they’re pondering how to make themselves irresistible, believing that someday the kids with the sticks will be back, that they’ll eventually be scooped up.
As Paul Graham recently wrote, fundraising is brutal. His #1 recommendation is to keep expectations low.
Yep, you’re pond scum.
Get used to it.
Embrace it.
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September 5th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Funny guy! So what do you think the biggest issues for you with fund raising? Telling the story well? Getting face time? Demonstrating progress? Or just finding people who aren’t full of false interest?
September 5th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Funny guy! So what do you think the biggest issues for you with fund raising? Telling the story well? Getting face time? Demonstrating progress? Or just finding people who aren’t full of false interest?
September 5th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Funny analogy. Carrying it forward, what’s important is being the little treasure that totally stands out in the scummy little pond, like the snapping turtle that you tell your friends about, remember the next day and want to go back and see again. Then later, just when you forget about the turtle, other friends tell you about it and you remember how cool it was.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Funny analogy. Carrying it forward, what’s important is being the little treasure that totally stands out in the scummy little pond, like the snapping turtle that you tell your friends about, remember the next day and want to go back and see again. Then later, just when you forget about the turtle, other friends tell you about it and you remember how cool it was.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Hi Neal.
To answer fully would take too much time, and would be infinitely better done over beer.
Telling the story well might be part of it. But the story itself is hard to tell, and very hard to summarize quickly (though I am getting better). See http://www.fluidinfo.com/terry/2007/12/01/pushing-back-on-the-elevator-pitch/ for a few more comments on elevator pitches.
Getting face time has not been a problem at all. That’s due to several things, the most important being having Esther Dyson as an investor.
Demonstrating progress has been hard. I have a blog post in me on that (and on many other aspects of this process). That’s partly because the project is very ambitious and would take lots of time to build even if I weren’t periodically out trying to raise money.
Finally, I think the interest has probably always been genuine. The simple truth is that VCs and other investors are just overrun with proposals to consider, meetings to take, etc., and that’s before you factor in the work they have to do on their existing investments or the work they need to do interacting with their investors and raising new funds. It’s a busy busy world, and you’re one of very many. Even when you get a meeting you’re facing odds of roughly 100-1 of being funded, all other things being equal (which of course they’re not).
I’ll say more in other posts, I hope. Blogging isn’t high on the priority list right now. Humor always is, though :-)
September 5th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Hi Neal.
To answer fully would take too much time, and would be infinitely better done over beer.
Telling the story well might be part of it. But the story itself is hard to tell, and very hard to summarize quickly (though I am getting better). See http://www.fluidinfo.com/terry/2007/12/01/pushing-back-on-the-elevator-pitch/ for a few more comments on elevator pitches.
Getting face time has not been a problem at all. That’s due to several things, the most important being having Esther Dyson as an investor.
Demonstrating progress has been hard. I have a blog post in me on that (and on many other aspects of this process). That’s partly because the project is very ambitious and would take lots of time to build even if I weren’t periodically out trying to raise money.
Finally, I think the interest has probably always been genuine. The simple truth is that VCs and other investors are just overrun with proposals to consider, meetings to take, etc., and that’s before you factor in the work they have to do on their existing investments or the work they need to do interacting with their investors and raising new funds. It’s a busy busy world, and you’re one of very many. Even when you get a meeting you’re facing odds of roughly 100-1 of being funded, all other things being equal (which of course they’re not).
I’ll say more in other posts, I hope. Blogging isn’t high on the priority list right now. Humor always is, though :-)
September 5th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
How about a trade, Terry? I’ll let you have my investors if I can have your invite to Foo Camp. ;-)
September 5th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
How about a trade, Terry? I’ll let you have my investors if I can have your invite to Foo Camp. ;-)
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:27 am
“Venture capitalists don’t have the longest attention spans in the world.”
—
Kleiner Perkins partner Ted Schlein, formerly in charge of
Java-themed investments, on his firm’s move to create an old-school leveraged buyout fund, The Industry Standard, 10 April 2000
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:27 am
“Venture capitalists don’t have the longest attention spans in the world.”
—
Kleiner Perkins partner Ted Schlein, formerly in charge of
Java-themed investments, on his firm’s move to create an old-school leveraged buyout fund, The Industry Standard, 10 April 2000
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 am
Yup. Only I don’t want to embrace being pond scum. I want to be the kids with sticks.
Except if I had a stick, I’d be better than that. Maybe. =)
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:17 am
Yup. Only I don’t want to embrace being pond scum. I want to be the kids with sticks.
Except if I had a stick, I’d be better than that. Maybe. =)
November 9th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
[…] have many other blog posts I’d love to write about this journey (e.g., pond scum), but blogging is a low priority right now. I’ve just jotted down these notes in order to […]
September 16th, 2009 at 10:50 am
This is absolutely refreshing & delightfully subversive + realistic. As an artist, having observed for decades the ways in which people engage with media in quasi-controlled environments, I think the description above applies to most creative expression involving an audience or viewer or respondent of whatever sort…
September 16th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
This is absolutely refreshing & delightfully subversive + realistic. As an artist, having observed for decades the ways in which people engage with media in quasi-controlled environments, I think the description above applies to most creative expression involving an audience or viewer or respondent of whatever sort…
May 24th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
[…] Many never actually bothered to say no, and several simply stopped replying to email. (See also: Pond Scum.) As an entrepreneur without a lot of outside support, it’s good to have things to keep you […]
July 30th, 2011 at 10:22 am
[…] have many other blog posts I’d love to write about this journey (e.g., pond scum), but blogging is a low priority right now. I’ve just jotted down these notes in order to […]