Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with some truly spectacular founders. One guy was a three-star general at one point. Another is in the US because his research is so far ahead of the ai learning curve that the US State Department granted him an O-1 extraordinary ability visa. Another had a PhD and a bunch of patents to his name.
If you work at a venture capital firm, it’s not unusual to meet such extraordinary people. You’ll see a constant stream of people coming in with presentations, prototypes, and resumes. Venture capitalists are on a perpetual quest to discover and invest in extraordinary startups, those rare gems with the potential to revolutionize markets, innovate industries, and revolutionize everything in sight. And if you’re an aspiring startup founder, you may wonder if you have what it takes to attract such investment and thrive in the competitive startup ecosystem.
Unfortunately, what I’m seeing in the fundraising journey right now is that if you don’t achieve a perfect fit between the founder and the market, fundraising is becoming increasingly difficult. hard.
Of course, that got me thinking about my own startups. If I compare myself to today’s fundraising standards, none of my startups would have had a chance of raising money.
