Patel: Few founders focus on testing core business hypotheses
Satya Patel · 20VC: Homebrew's Satya Patel on The Key Components of Being A Great VC & The 3 Main Reasons Startups Fail At Seed · Mar 28, 2016 · at 20:43
Satya Patel, co-founder of venture capital firm Homebrew, explains the difference between being busy and being productive as a startup founder.
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“I think very people try to, very few companies and founders focus on the two or three things that really matter, have a hypothesis about those things, and then try to, you know, prove or disprove those hypotheses.”
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More from Satya Patel
Patel: $100M seed funds are awkwardly sized tweeners in current venture markets
“In today's market at the seed stage in particular a hundred million dollar fund is a bit of a tweener. You've either got to be larger to be able to write large checks and get the ownership that you need in order to win the best opportunities and deliver the ty…”
Patel: Self-funded investing frees investors from needing fund-returner outcomes
“The flexibility that we have in not having a fund now is that we don't have to think of every investment as having the potential to return the fund, right? Every investment just has to be a good return.”
Patel: Homebrew testing whether non-lead seed investors can maintain lead influence
“One of the experiments we're running here is kind of the testing the thinking around can capital and counsel be separated over the course of time, right? And so one of the things we're trying to evaluate is in some cases when we do a smaller check, can we stil…”
Patel: VCs rarely regret early distributions, but heavily regret holding to zero
“Most investors, investors don't realize, like, they're not gonna regret the upside if they put money in their pocket, but if they don't take the upside and things go away, they're gonna have a lot of regret.”
Patel: Distribution wins over product in early-stage startups
“It's not the best product that wins, it's the best distribution that wins, and that the best distribution creates a feedback cycle that allows you to have the best product over time, but distribution wins over product in the early days.”