probably an opportunity here, since all of the VCs are asking for the same exact information, have a website that has the information for multiple companies in the same place
That's what CrunchBase (http://www.crunchbase.com/) is. The phone call definitely serves more of a purpose beyond data collection - pitching the company and verifying legitimacy.
Because they are humans who need to form social connections. If they were programmers they would realize the information was logically equivalent whether it was gathered from CrunchBase, the company website, or a phone call with a smooth-voiced young man who claims to be a founder.
yes at the earliest stage, when its just an idea, and nothing more.
But we are talking about something that has already been built. Something that is already popular enough to catch the eye of VCs. So obviously the team is good enough, if they arrived at that stage. If they didn't have a good team, they wouldn't have arrived at that stage to be hounded by VCs.
VC's obviously want a team that isn't simply capable of launching a site and get 10.000 users. They're looking for a team that can make it into a business that's worth millions.
Not many teams can do this. So yes, people matter, both in the very earliest stages, mature companies and everything in between. If you don't believe me look at Apple's stockprice every time there's a story on their CEO's bad health.
The team that built a site and got 10.000 users may not be capable of driving it forward to a real large-scale business. Maybe they just got lucky, maybe they don't really care for the money but just want to have fun, maybe they have no idea how to manage other people. The team in a companys earliest stages doesn't say a lot about how well they will perform in the setting of a larger company, which they will hopefully become.
That's not really true. We showed up on a couple VC's radars before there was any real credible reason for us to have done so.
I think there's the assumption that because raising a round can be tedious that actually getting in touch with VCs must be too. As it turns out, once you show up on the startup radar some VCs will want to get you in their tracking database so that they've already made a connection at which point you are trying to raise money.
The last one that we had contact us was doing only growth stage investments for companies doing $2mm in revenue per year ... and we're still in beta. It was pretty clear from the start (and we told them that before the call) that they weren't really looking to invest in us, but wanted to have us checked off a list.
Most VCs have a small set of partners and a larger group of associates / analysts. The latter are basically functioning as scouts but don't in general have the power to decide on investments. Getting noticed by them is nice, but it doesn't say a whole lot -- it's their job to be noticing things.
Then tell us about your personal experience. Don't make claims without explaining yourself.
EDIT: Or you can delete your post, Teej, which said "VCs don't invest in things that are actually relevant, take it from personal experience." If you don't want to explain something, then just say it, apologize, and move on. Don't try to hide what you said.
Hostile is a good way to be. It means forcing people into explaining themselves and the things they do. At the same time, it's a state of mind that lets yourself admit you're wrong, which I was this time.
