<story><title>One year as a solo dev building open-source data tools without funding</title><url>https://datastation.multiprocess.io/blog/2022-06-11-year-in-review.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ThePhysicist</author><text>Advice regarding VCs: Don&amp;#x27;t ever talk to them if they randomly approach you saying they &amp;quot;really like what you&amp;#x27;re doing&amp;quot;. They will gladly sent an associate to talk with you about your business in the greatest detail and ask you to share presentations, demos and metrics. Anything you give them will then get passed along to their own portfolio companies in your space. So don&amp;#x27;t feel flattered when they feign interest in your company, they&amp;#x27;re mostly just doing reconnaissance. Ignore it as chances are you&amp;#x27;re feeding them information they&amp;#x27;ll use to kill your company.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re really interested in VC funding you should proactively approach VCs (ideally using introductions by your network) that seem suitable. And you should check beforehand that they don&amp;#x27;t fund your main competitor.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>amacneil</author><text>Your advice is correct, but the reason is wrong. If you want to raise money, then inbound VC interest is a great source of leads (led to out series A, similar to sibling comments).&lt;p&gt;But VCs employ armies of people to trawl the internet for new companies, and as an early stage founder you are time poor. Tell them that you are focusing on building right now but would love to chat when the time is right, add them to a spreadsheet, and go back to work.&lt;p&gt;The time to start taking calls is when you are actually ready to raise a pre-seed&amp;#x2F;seed, or ~6-12 months out from your series A (by this point you should have a team who can keep building while you are networking).&lt;p&gt;Also as the author noticed, treat the VC calls like a phone screen, and ask questions to filter out bad matches. If they don’t lead rounds at your current stage, or don’t “get” your product or market, move on.</text></comment>
<story><title>One year as a solo dev building open-source data tools without funding</title><url>https://datastation.multiprocess.io/blog/2022-06-11-year-in-review.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ThePhysicist</author><text>Advice regarding VCs: Don&amp;#x27;t ever talk to them if they randomly approach you saying they &amp;quot;really like what you&amp;#x27;re doing&amp;quot;. They will gladly sent an associate to talk with you about your business in the greatest detail and ask you to share presentations, demos and metrics. Anything you give them will then get passed along to their own portfolio companies in your space. So don&amp;#x27;t feel flattered when they feign interest in your company, they&amp;#x27;re mostly just doing reconnaissance. Ignore it as chances are you&amp;#x27;re feeding them information they&amp;#x27;ll use to kill your company.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re really interested in VC funding you should proactively approach VCs (ideally using introductions by your network) that seem suitable. And you should check beforehand that they don&amp;#x27;t fund your main competitor.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>james_impliu</author><text>Had this happen (random outreach). Led to a series A.&lt;p&gt;Respectfully disagree - I don&amp;#x27;t think competitors copying is a significant risk early on, compared to running out of money whilst trying to hit product market fit.</text></comment>