There was a time - not too long ago- that I used to chill with the startup sector.
Now, I'm not (really) sure if where I worked at could be considered a startup, but hey, who is to say that companies don't plonk their time in the units and the startups that they have investment in?
So during that season I was heading to networking sessions nearly every week (almost), and can I tell you that if there's one thing that struck me about these events, it was the sheer number of venture capitalists and finance dudes hovering in the community.
No doubt, what with the funding game that goes on in the startup sector, venture capitalists and founders are integral.
Still, one must really have excellent time management if one party is able to go to session after session after session in search of the potential VC, and the other is able to carve out blocks of time in the middle of a regular work day to attend a couple of sessions in search of the next big thing.
Am not being sarcastic here, but it used to boggle me how these guys managed to find all the time.
I mean, weren't they supposed to be at their desks in their co-working spaces churning out the necessary stuff to prepare their product to meet the standards of an MPV?
And weren't the co-founders (also the marketing guy) supposed to be working on their deck, their documentation and their elevator pitch so that they could at first instance grab the attention of a prospective VC for seed funding, pre-seed funding, Series A funding, and so on?
Now, don't judge me because of the above.
I agree that funding is critical to every startup.
I've been there.
All I'm saying is that there were so many sessions that you never knew which one was the most apt and at these sessions you met so many founders and so many VCs that you didn't know who was who and so ended up going for them all.
You wouldn't know if the session would be fruitful.
You wouldn't know if the people there were the very same ones you met last week or the week before at another session and were now making the very same presentation with the very same deck.
It seemed to be a game of opportunity.
Maybe that's why all these sessions tended to come with drinks, and food.
All else failed- you could have your late lunch or early dinner at the same time.
I don't know how many founders, co-founders and venture capitalists I've met over the years, but whilst some did make a positive impression on me, others- I have to say- surprised me with their spirit and style.
Yes, you do have to carry a certain sense of pizzazz, know-how and authority when you're a VC.
And you do have to sound like you know your s***.
But surely it is not necessary to take a standoffish, half-listening attitude when someone is trying to explain what they do?
And surely it is not necessary to take a heck-care, arrogant attitude when a founder is trying his or her best to describe their work to you?
The flamboyance, I'm telling you, just... WOW.
But it does not beget well the spirit of a venture capitalist to have an know-it-all cynicism at first meet, because everyone worth their salt knows that valuation is never done at first instance, pre-judgment is not wise, and valuation is never done by one man alone.
Taking this into consideration, where then is the need for the attitude when at these sessions, you're really more the gatekeeper, and your KPIs for attendance are to listen to their pitches, remember the industries featured, report back on them, bring back the entire stack of name cards, and then back in the office, sit through with the others with your (hopefully unbiased) impressions of who will, or will not, warrant a second call.
Yet they all seemed to have the same attitude.
Didn't matter from where they came from- Singapore, Australia, Thailand, UK, Indonesia, Israel- they were more or less all the same.
Perhaps it is a NASDAQ-Wall Street-Silicon Valley kind of thing disseminated through different representatives.
But, let's be real, startup founders are not idiots, and many of them (despite their big talk and over-exuberance mannerisms) are sincere in getting their work up and on the road.
Shouldn't such sincerity (if present) be reciprocated too?
Then again, with that being said, whilst the spirit of venture capitalists at these sessions was quite an eye opener- the flamboyance and standoffish attitude isn't what really gets my goat.
What does get my goat is when a VC suggests we meet at some awkward, obscure place in the middle of nowhere (why is it always Amoy Street, Telok Ayer Street, Club Street, Dempsey..) and then give me just four minutes (knowing how complicated the entertainment marketing industry is) whilst saying very very for the rush and all but they are out of the country tonight bla bla bla- when it is quite apparent that they're not going anywhere?
Hey, frequent flier travel for the middle-range VC went out the window more than four years ago. Not to say that there wasn't travel (in pre-COVID times) but come on, there was just no jetsetting from one place to another if you were at that level.
If you were higher up the ladder, maybe.
But see, if you were, you wouldn't come down from your office on a hot, humid afternoon to meet me at Ya Kun. You'd stay in your office and have me go there, armed with laptop and presentation and name card to make a favorable impression on you, instead.
Like I said, startup founders aren't idiots, and we can see through a ruse when in actual fact, you're saying all that simply because what we told you was not what you expected it to be, and, in fact, was beyond your area of expertise, entirely.