What are some concrete ways in which VCs help startups?
pg: Some of what VCs and earlier stage investors do is the same, but some is very different.  For example, two of the biggest things we do are help people come up with and modify their ideas, and teach them how to raise money from VCs.  Whereas VCs expect you already to have decided what you're working on, and by definition don't need to teach you how to convince VCs. But VCs can do stuff like help you hire senior executives or (should you be so lucky) arrange IPOs, which we know nothing about.We spend our time mostly on early problems like the initial idea, the relationship between the cofounders, how to launch, who to get as your initial users, how to convince later stage investors to give you more money, and (for startups that want to) early stage acquisitions.  VCs focus on how to take a promising little company and turn it into a big company, including growing revenues, growing the organization, and big acquisitions or IPOs.Roughly speaking, the earliest stage of investors focus on helping the aircraft get off the runway, and VCs focus on helping it get to 35,000 feet.It's harder to generalize about angels.  Some invest $10k and some invest almost as much as VCs.  Some are very active and others are completely hands off.