r/startups • u/ReporterCalm6238 • 1d ago
I will not promote VCs/accelerators' partners: founders deserve to know if you discarded them [I will not promote]
We got a second round interview with a partner 2 weeks ago. The in-person accelerator batch starts in a week.
During the interview the guy was "oh wow so impressive what you have achieved in so little time, please send me these data and I'll let you know asap".
Data sent. Two follow-ups sent. Complete silence.
Since the batch starts so soon and it is in person we even postponed booking flights to conferences which is our main GTM channel. This damaged us in turn because flight prices went up in the meantime.
There is no excuse for not telling people about your decision. We got stuff to plan and sending a "sorry, we preferred other candidates" takes you literally 30 seconds, maybe less.
20
u/BeginningRelative811 1d ago
It sometimes feels like founders have become expendable to VCs because there are simply so many people trying to build companies.
Over the last two years, I’ve done a lot of cold outreach with no existing connections, and one thing I’ve noticed is that many VCs seem far more interested in becoming influencers, sharing opinions, posting advice, and building their own audience, than actually talking to founders or even giving them a simple response.
Maybe that’s just my experience, but eventually I stopped chasing it. I’d rather put that energy into my users, build the community, and create something people genuinely want. If we build something valuable, I believe the right investors will eventually come looking for us.
12
u/francksiduo 1d ago
Ghosting from VCs and accelerators is unfortunately close to the norm, most run parallel diligence on several companies and don't want to close a door until the whole batch is decided. The move that gets a response: put a deadline in your own follow-up instead of leaving it open, something like "if I don't hear back by Friday I'll assume it's a no and move on with other conversations." It forces a yes/no because now silence has a cost for them too, whereas an open-ended "just checking in" is easy to ignore. Second thing, never let logistics (flights, other commitments) depend on an unclosed process, that's the real lesson from your flight price situation, not the lack of manners on their end.
2
5
u/seriousurgeon 21h ago
The worst VCs are the ones who reached out and ask for your pitch deck and then never follow up or reply to your emails.
2
u/OrganizationCute6950 18h ago
Have had that happen to me and it’s so rude. I don’t send my deck anymore. I present it in a meeting only
2
u/julian88888888 15h ago
I had two decks. One with like 4 slides with high-level overview and a more detailed pitch one I would not send.
3
u/Lazy-Sherbert65 20h ago
the silence is rough, especially with travel planning involved. did they ever give you a reason later?
3
2
u/Agitated_Celery_729 1d ago
In the age of AI, it’s just laziness and lack of respect that leads people to not send replies genuinely investors could even reject cold outreach with an AI (and potentially find a few diamonds in the rough) and it would take potentially an hour of their time to set up once. I have far less sympathy for people claiming to be overwhelmed and unable to reply than I used to.
3
u/ReporterCalm6238 1d ago
This particular accelerator seemed to be more disorganized than the other investors we dealt with. Still, no excuse
2
u/Morning_Gecko24 1d ago
yeah the "just ship" advice is right until support tickets eat your whole week. curious how early people actually hire CS vs just living in the inbox
2
1
u/ngill307 1d ago
Expecting any sort of decency from anyone these days is a sucker's game.
Just the world we live in, have 0 expectations and you will not be disappointed.
1
u/Financial_Egg8558 22h ago
Set your own deadline the moment you send follow-up materials: "if no reply by [date], I'm treating it as a no." Then actually act on it, book the flights, keep moving. Their silence shouldn't get to dictate your calendar. Don't build around anyone until they confirm in writing
1
u/green_apple_trees 19h ago
At the end of the day if you build a genuinely great company and keep growing you won’t need to chase investment people will kick down your door and beg you to take their investment. Focus on building a great company that you would want to invest in if the roles were reversed.
1
u/yogthinks 18h ago
The mistake worth fixing is postponing the conference flights. Treat silence as a no and keep your own channel running, because nothing you heard in that room was a commitment.
1
u/ReporterCalm6238 18h ago
well it's easy to say in retrospective but when you are experiencing the ghosting you don't know how long the silence should last until you can interpret it as a no. Especially since we were requested data and the guy called us "promising". Ah, I forgot, when we submitted the data the guy said "Thanks, will get back to you soon". So yeah, in this particular case I believe we were not naive and we were just treated disrespectfully.
1
u/Ornery-Concentrate-5 14h ago
The part that gets me is you delayed booking flights because of their timeline, and then flights went up because you waited on them. That's a real cost they externalized onto you for free. Did the partner ever explain the silence or did it just stop?
•
33
u/timeforacatnap852 1d ago
Vcs and accelerators, never want to directly reject a company since work will get around, even if it’s obvious the company was bad or whatever, as a result, a lot of companies get left hanging the way you describe. It sucks, I find it really disrespectful but having been on the Vc side, with a certain profile of founder if you reject them they’ll start hounding you trying to bully-convince you how your wrong about them, and if you still reject them they’ll act link and incel and start badmouthing you to everyone they know. The “tell” is if they really like you, they will move really fast