<story><title>Why investors don’t fund dating</title><url>http://andrewchen.co/why-investors-dont-fund-dating/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rcarrigan87</author><text>Despite the echo-chamber of SV and tech media, most successful founders are older, with real world industry experience.[0]&lt;p&gt;This data probably doesn&amp;#x27;t reflect the insane number of 20 somethings chasing ideas in markets like the dating space right now. Most of them fail.&lt;p&gt;I work in the senior care market and I&amp;#x27;m shocked there aren&amp;#x27;t more businesses being started around that market. It&amp;#x27;s absolutely huge with endless opportunity. But I guess that kind of proves your point...&lt;p&gt;[0]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-founders-heres-the-data&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-foun...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>beat</author><text>The problem is, founders tend to try to solve problems they&amp;#x27;ve experienced and understand. For the twenty-somethings that are the public face of &amp;quot;startup founders&amp;quot;, they may not understand international trade or enterprise health care or other big problems, but they understand dating. So they write dating apps.&lt;p&gt;And then, by the time they&amp;#x27;ve acquired enough real-world professional experience to actually understand some interesting and high-value problems, they have a mortgage and kids and don&amp;#x27;t want to eat ramen like they did when they were 22.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>exelius</author><text>Yeah, you&amp;#x27;re right. But if you look at the &lt;i&gt;really big&lt;/i&gt; companies, nearly all were started by young founders (Facebook, Google, etc.) And that&amp;#x27;s what kids (and the media) focus in on.&lt;p&gt;IMO experienced founders are great for building a cash cow business worth $1 billion or so. That takes hard work and a billion dollars is a fucking lot of money, so it&amp;#x27;s nothing to scoff at. But it&amp;#x27;s not primarily what VCs are interested in: the VC model is built off of small equity stakes in $10 billion+ IPOs.&lt;p&gt;To have a $10 billion+ IPO, you need to invent a market, and young kids are great at that because they don&amp;#x27;t see the limitations the market has placed on us. Most don&amp;#x27;t have the fucking slightest about finance or money, which can be an impediment if you&amp;#x27;re trying to create a product in an existing market, but if you&amp;#x27;re building a new market or category, short-term viability matters less.&lt;p&gt;That said, there are a lot more ideas that can turn into successful $1 billion companies than ideas that can become $100 billion companies. So your odds are a lot better at starting a successful business if you learn how first.&lt;p&gt;And to your point about senior care... most VCs who don&amp;#x27;t focus on health care avoid it entirely for similar reasons they avoid dating apps. You can either go the medical device&amp;#x2F;biotech route and spend hundreds of millions on lawyers and regulatory approvals, or you can go after the provider side of things. The healthcare IT space is pretty saturated and very fragmented, so it ends up scaling like a consulting business (which VCs are also not fond of).</text></comment>
<story><title>Why investors don’t fund dating</title><url>http://andrewchen.co/why-investors-dont-fund-dating/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rcarrigan87</author><text>Despite the echo-chamber of SV and tech media, most successful founders are older, with real world industry experience.[0]&lt;p&gt;This data probably doesn&amp;#x27;t reflect the insane number of 20 somethings chasing ideas in markets like the dating space right now. Most of them fail.&lt;p&gt;I work in the senior care market and I&amp;#x27;m shocked there aren&amp;#x27;t more businesses being started around that market. It&amp;#x27;s absolutely huge with endless opportunity. But I guess that kind of proves your point...&lt;p&gt;[0]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-founders-heres-the-data&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-foun...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>beat</author><text>The problem is, founders tend to try to solve problems they&amp;#x27;ve experienced and understand. For the twenty-somethings that are the public face of &amp;quot;startup founders&amp;quot;, they may not understand international trade or enterprise health care or other big problems, but they understand dating. So they write dating apps.&lt;p&gt;And then, by the time they&amp;#x27;ve acquired enough real-world professional experience to actually understand some interesting and high-value problems, they have a mortgage and kids and don&amp;#x27;t want to eat ramen like they did when they were 22.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>billyhoffman</author><text>This.&lt;p&gt;My startup is part of the ATDC Select program&amp;#x2F;incubator in Atlanta. There are roughly 30 companies around various verticals. I&amp;#x27;m in my early 30&amp;#x27;s and I&amp;#x27;m among the youngest of the founders. Many of these people are in their late 30&amp;#x27;s&amp;#x2F;40&amp;#x27;s&amp;#x2F;or more and been through multiple startups.&lt;p&gt;(funny enough maybe 20% of the companies are healthcare related, so maybe there are doing what they know)&lt;p&gt;Maybe in other places startups are a only-kids game, but not here.</text></comment>