I have learned that most ‘successful’ entrepreneurs are lying sacks of shit. One guy I know lied about all his traction, he didn’t even have product yet, and he still was able to secure 750K.
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Word. VC's tend to fund the scumbags especially the ones that have "two faces". Able to speak emphatically of the love their community, user base etc, while in reality merely using them for growth and profit.
Case in mind. Airbnb, Lyft etc.
At least the founder of Uber is pretty upfront he doesn't give a sack of shit for his users.
"Able to speak emphatically of the love their community, user base etc, while in reality merely using them for growth and profit."
Soooo true... but I am not sure how these VCs are going to react when they found out the truth.
I witnessed making stats look better for VCs then they really were, growing users (who are not even related to the product) by giving freebies just to get that volume to show off. Total useless data base of customers who downloaded free stuff once and never returned to buy anything. Total fraud, imho.
I vouched for reality and focusing on what really brings $ in... but CEO wanted investment first.
It's all building a "team" and looking lovely...when actually behind the curtains it's a war and nothing works.
so basically you are saying all the successful ppl are sociopaths
^ yup.
Lol I would jump ship, bro. Founders that have short-term lens rarely build valuable companies.
Castles built in the air without solid foundations inevitably fall down and go boom.
There are many companies who figure that they will do fancy schmancy marketing and advertising and once there's a demand - then, and only then will they start working on improving their MVP product. Sometimes they succeed, but more often, they fail.
And hey, I'm not fresh off the turnip truck. I've watched this happen with many a company over decades, long before the advent of social media. I'm in operations, and I shove foundations under those castles. Unfortunately many entrepreneurs don't have operations experience in their bag of tricks. A solid operations person - what Robert Hatta calls the "Get Shit Done" person - is often the most valuable hire a startup can make. I'd like to share a recent article that any burgeoning startup entrepreneur will enjoy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-hatta/is-your-company-a-chicken_b_3707934.html
Kind regards,
Susie Sharp
Cleveland, Ohio
susiesharp@hotmail.com
I know of a startup that exited to a major company, prior to the exit of they mgmt team they timed it perfectly with "letting go" and purposely firing loads of people, to only hire them in a new venture straight away. The company that acquired it was so fucked, it resold the business for a fraction of the exit amount.