blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 2: When the VCs say “no”
If you’re an investor, you look at the risk around an investment as if it’s an onion. Just like you peel an onion and remove each layer in turn, risk in a startup investment comes in layers that get peeled away — reduced — one by one.
Your challenge as an entrepreneur trying to raise venture capital is to keep peeling layers of risk off of your particular onion until the VCs say “yes” — until the risk in your startup is reduced to the point where investing in your startup doesn’t look terrifying and merely looks risky.
As a entrepreneur, one of the hardest things you’ll do is raise money. Over and over again, you are telling your dream and people poke holes in it. You can’t help but start to feel resentful– ‘why don’t they see the big picture! This will change everything.’ Marc does a good job of allowing you the one thing you need to negotiate: perspective.