I’m struggling w/o capital investment but feel that the conventional funding models for startup companies feeds the neo-classical capitalist machine. The “10x in 5-year” VC plan destroys the possibility for a stakeholder-driven, democratic org.

If you don’t think that you can achieve very fast growth, then you shouldn’t take VC money. VC’s are in it for the big paydays; $100 million plus exits.

If your growth trajectory won’t achieve that in 5 years or less then go with angel investors, as they’re typically happy with smaller returns.

Anonymous says:

February 28, 2014 at 1:13 am

You totally missed the point. Venture Capital is feeding the fire of inequity.

Reply
- Anonymous says:
  
  February 28, 2014 at 1:55 am
  
  The world isn’t fair. You can either cry about it, or deal with it. As a black male founder I know that I would be rejected by most VCs. I’m not the stereotypical white male nerd who went to Stanford or Harvard, which is what most VCs look for since those are mainly the types that they’ve funded in the past.
  
  They fund a certain type then when that type ends up succeeding, they use that to create the stereotype that white male nerds from Ivy League schools make the best founders.
  
  Founders who don’t fit that mold, like myself, have to succeed before we are taken seriously by VCs; we don’t get the benefit of the doubt like white male Ivy league programmers do.
  
  Of course that’s unfair to me and anyone else that doesn’t fit that mold, but I’m not going to cry about it or quit. I’m going to build my company without VC funding and once I’m successful they have to take me seriously.
  
  Reply
  - Anonymous says:
    
    March 2, 2014 at 1:42 pm
    
    Amen to that! Now imagine being a minority female solo single founder with no computing skills
    
    Reply
    - Anonymous says:
      
      March 12, 2014 at 9:02 pm
      
      Oh come on. Stop complaining. We all have something. I’m white, I’m nerdy, but I’m gay and have really large feet. Still, I’m not complaining. We are all members of a minority one way or another.
      
      BTW no computer skills is a quite easy to correct disadvantage.
      
      Reply

You’re trying to pair the wrong type of organization with the wrong asset class.

Just because a VC won’t invest in your company doesn’t mean VCs are destroying the type of company you want to build. It means you’re pitching the wrong audience.

Plenty of the products/services we use on a day-to-day basis are not VC-style businesses. That doesn’t make those businesses any less valid or lucrative.

Whatever, humans trading with each other is in our DNA nothing neo or classical about it, get off the Bitch train and get something done.

Anonymous says:

March 8, 2014 at 3:20 pm

There’s nothing in our DNA about “Venture Capital” either, but that probably won’t stop you from pretending that there is.

Reply

Startup “culture” is remarkably similar to corporate culture, mutatis mutandis.

One difference is that most startup funding is pocket change that big captial firms throw away on many high-risk but diversified projects hoping for Next WhatsApp or at least 100% YOY. And if that doesn’t work out but there’s a good talent pool, they can bolt-on acquire, or at least vulture-raid and sell the fucking ergonomic chairs for preferential return on equity on preferred shares.

Does that sound democratic? It’s not traditional corporate, but it sure ain’t a democracy.

The ownership structure of the capital flows remains largely identical. Money changes hands, and sometimes stars rise and fall, but the system by which they rise and fall changes little and continues to favor the same set while being unconcerned for individual components. The primary difference is that startups either “disrupt” existing markets by trying to create new ones (social-network-of-the-week) or shoehorn into existing ones via different points of entry (Uber), whereas older corporations “disrupt” by doing things like shuttering plants and offices, outsourcing, getting less people to produce the same or more (layoffs), etc. In both instances there’s a differential created and the same goons (“I’m from HQ and I’m here to help”) end up managing it.

I saw someone describe startup “culture” as a “postmodern corporation” where instead of individual subsidiaries and departments, larger holding companies and groups of VC can instead “invest” in a startup and then either let it fail, or acqui-hire, or bolt-on, or engineer a massive M&A-style event: all of this is similar too, but different from, business management involving traditional large companies.

Which is to say: it’s a casino, and you’re not the owner. It’s not going to be democratic. This isn’t surprising–it’s funded by the same people who fund huge corporate institutions too! The predominate difference is that they’ve figured that it’s possible to run a ‘post-institution’ in a manner analogous to your typical corporation.

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