I love every word by Bryce, Caterina, and Kristen, below, and then Taylor Mali’s words almost speak for themselves, except really, they need him to live, and that’s the point.
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When people ask me the hardest part of being a VC, I have a pretty canned answer. It’s one I’ve used a lot over the last 10 years that I’ve been doing this, tho it’s grown more nuanced over time.
The hardest part of my job is that we are one step removed from making the actual things we fund. We don’t actually build the products, we don’t actually close the big sales, we don’t actually make the decisions that drive the businesses we fund. We give input at varying degrees of forcefulness. We make introduction and dive into back channels for feedback. We play a roles as supporting cast in the companies we fund, never getting to play the lead.
And sometimes that’s hard.
It’s hard when people you fund, people you genuinely care about, ignore your advice. It’s hard to watch them step on landmines you told them were in their path. It’s hard when you see something broken they choose not to fix. It’s hard when the company you thought you were funding becomes something entirely different. It’s hard when the cash runs out.
In the early days of developing a response to this question I would often say that VCs don’t actually make anything, we just fund the makers that do. I’ve since changed my tune on that, and this video taps into why.
It’s a short clip of the slam poet, Taylor Mali, recounting an exchange with a lawyer who questioned him about how much money he made as a teacher by asking “what do you make?”. Taylor flips that question into a moving riff on what a teacher makes that might surprise you. It might inspires you too.
You see, there’s a lot of noise out there in startup land. Caterina touches on this in her excellent post from last night:
I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs in their 20s who are knowledgeable about the valuations various Y Combinator startups have attained, know the names of all the angel investors in the Valley, have in-depth knowledge of the Facebook diaspora and their doings, have opinions on various Zynga acquisitions, and know exactly how to get Andrew Mason on the line…it boggles the mind. These are good things to have in your tool kit. But I want to hear about things out there that they love. About loving the thing they’re building.
So, to hell with all that noise. It’s just a big mass of envy, chatter and FOMO. Let’s get excited and make things.
So, no, as a VC I don’t actually make the products we fund. I don’t make the headlines our founders do. And I don’t make the companies that change the world.
But I do make things.
I make palms sweat when I step into a conference room to hear a first pitch. I make questions that cut through you like a ginsu cuts through a tin can. I make poseurs walk and founders walk the talk. I make hearts sink when my number appears on caller ID. I make entrepreneur’s hearts break when I say “no” and founders high five when I say “yes”. I make parents proud of kids they feared could never keep a job. I make it possible for moms and dads to put bread on the table when their ambition outstrips their savings. I make founders believe when they can’t and doubt when they shouldn’t. Sometimes I make a difference. Sometimes I just make a mess. And, sometimes I make a leader by being someone’s first follower.
Now, what do you make?
It’s labor day weekend. Some will relax and unplug. Some will hunker down and work. But I hope all of you who watch this video will take time to think about what you are really making which is why it’s required weekend viewing here on BRYCE DOT VC.
There is a lot about being an entrepreneur that is gross. Not just hard beyond measure, but gross, and one of those is the way twentysomethings talk about exactly what Caterina points up in the passage Bryce quotes here.
I don’t know all the names of all the VCs and angels; I never will. I don’t want to try on ideas until a one fits a market and attempt to quickly exit and make everyone a pile. I may very likely never make it into a mentor program (I’ve been rejected from Techstars twice); I don’t look like three young guys with a kinda boring but investable enterprise idea, like most of those in the classes of grads I didn’t make it into.
I wear loudass vintage dresses. I make things that people love. For the past decade, I have helped international brands create content that proves them credible and interesting.
Give me a little more time to tell you about what happened with Galvanize, and know that I am making something very different, but similarly with love, and it’s going to take a while. It’s a big idea, it’s going to save a few people’s lives (not kidding), and I am going to finally be able to explain to my mom what it is that I do.
And while I am making this thing, I am going to keep teaching graduate students about how communities work, because they will create the tools we use next. If they don’t know how the Web started and what it looks like when things are made for love and the pleasure of creation before product/market fit and all the rest of that, then all of us in tech are really in trouble.
