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Rojas: Venture community is open and friendly, not cutthroat

Peter Rojas · 20 VC 079: BETAWORKS WEEK: East vs West Coast Investing with Peter Rojas, EIR @ Betaworks, Co-Founder @ Weblogs & Engadget · Oct 14, 2015 · at 20:20

Peter Rojas, Entrepreneur in Residence at Betaworks, reflects on his initial impressions after entering venture capital following a career as a tech media founder.

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“I think one of the things that I, I've been pleasantly surprised by is how open and friendly other people in the community, the venture community are... I think there's maybe this stereotype that of feces is very kind of cutthroat and always trying to You know, get one in over entrepreneurs or their other, other investors, and so far knock on wood, it's been a, it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me.”

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More from Peter Rojas

Opinion
Rojas: Easy Kickstarter crowdfunding hurts hardware startups' operational discipline
“One of the things about when you're building, say, raising money for hardware on Kickstarter, for example, is that You can raise money so easily for if you lay out a compelling product vision that it actually takes away some of the constraints that would force…”
Peter Rojas Oct 14, 2015 ▶ 26:59 20 VC 079: BETAWORKS WEEK: East vs West Coast Investing with Peter Rojas, EIR @ Betaworks, Co-Founder @ Weblogs & Engadget
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rojas: Startup valuations at the seed stage have begun to rationalize
“I think that they've actually started to rationalize a little bit more.”
Peter Rojas Oct 14, 2015 ▶ 13:14 20 VC 079: BETAWORKS WEEK: East vs West Coast Investing with Peter Rojas, EIR @ Betaworks, Co-Founder @ Weblogs & Engadget
Disclosure
Rojas is open to cold emails and reviews every pitch
“I'm actually pretty open to the cold emails for what it's worth. I take a look at everything”
Peter Rojas Oct 14, 2015 ▶ 14:23 20 VC 079: BETAWORKS WEEK: East vs West Coast Investing with Peter Rojas, EIR @ Betaworks, Co-Founder @ Weblogs & Engadget
Disclosure
Rojas: Seed-stage investment decisions are driven by product, not metrics
“So not metrics driven at this stage for me. I think that what I care a lot about is I look at the product.”
Peter Rojas Oct 14, 2015 ▶ 17:52 20 VC 079: BETAWORKS WEEK: East vs West Coast Investing with Peter Rojas, EIR @ Betaworks, Co-Founder @ Weblogs & Engadget
Assertion Supported
Rojas: Weblogs Inc. took investment from only Mark Cuban
“We only had one investor in Weblogs Inc. It was Mark Cuban”
Peter Rojas Oct 14, 2015 ▶ 22:21 20 VC 079: BETAWORKS WEEK: East vs West Coast Investing with Peter Rojas, EIR @ Betaworks, Co-Founder @ Weblogs & Engadget
Assertion Contradicted
Rojas: Fewer than 1,000 people were blogging in 2001
“It seemed at the time blogging was a very, very, very small space. There were maybe, at that point, I think there was probably less than a thousand people blogging.”
Peter Rojas Oct 14, 2015 ▶ 4:13 20 VC 079: BETAWORKS WEEK: East vs West Coast Investing with Peter Rojas, EIR @ Betaworks, Co-Founder @ Weblogs & Engadget
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