Founders

VCs benefit when founders think their company is earlier stage, lower valuation, higher risk, and lower upside than it actually is. Keep your feet on the ground and be hungry, but stay confident, shoot for the stars, and don't apologize for valuing yourself and what you've built.

Head of Engineering at Courtyard.io, bringing physical collectibles onchain. nf.td/joe /courtyard /backend

standard is only standard because the VCs say so. everyone knows for the hottest deals, nonstandard terms become standard. Founders should put themselves and their companies first. Too many try to make friends with potential investors and the incentives just aren't set up for that to work out.

I actually agree with you for pre-seed and seed; I think most of where I'm seeing disingenuous advice from VCs is at the growth stage, e.g.

I actually agree with you for pre-seed and seed; I think most of where I'm seeing disingenuous advice from VCs is at the growth stage, e.g. https://x.com/TaliaGold/status/1924685400356032719

think this whole valuation conversation is not really the main battle tbh - whether high or low it means nothing, the only Q is what makes sense tactically.

there's a standard dilution (15-20%). My exp. of the optimal strategy is thinking from the starting point of how much cash is needed to deliver your ambitious goal and survive a long drought. then from this, infer valuation.

any other approach misses the point that capital is fuel, and the hard bit is actually making the sustainable business (which btw, high val can really get in the way of because it makes it that much harder to raise should you miss your goals even by a hair)

CTO @beelinesai, CPO @snickerdoodle, CEO Zealous. YC/TS Alum & Mentor

Speaking purely from public comments I've seen, there's a lot of talk about uncertainty with the overall economy, the advice that too high a valuation can make it impossible to raise again, and discussion of the valuations in hot verticals (ai) vs others. I wouldn't want to speak out of turn about private conversations I or others at my company have had with investors- I think we've gotten great advice and introductions so largely have dealt with forthcoming and honest investors who aren't pretending incentives are what they aren't.

Def agree with you both.  Curious @jpetrich what are you seeing as methods they're using to peg valuations / growth downwards.

Assuming you've got metrics (at the A and higher) how do they discount these?