Insight certainty 5/5 debate potential 2/5

Startup customer acquisition costs never scale linearly as customer bases expand

Peter Pham · 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested · Aug 29, 2016 · at 21:36

Peter Pham is co-founder of Science Inc. Here he discusses why customer acquisition efficiency inevitably degrades as startups attempt to scale.

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“Whereas everybody's assumption is, I've acquired this many customers for the X. People believe that's linear. That's never true. Never, ever, ever true.”

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When a VC says they couldn't convince their partners, it is a lie
“The cop-out of every GP and every partner is always the, well, I love the deal, but I couldn't get my partners. No, that's actually a lie. They didn't have the conviction. They, they're using that for optionality for later, right?”
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If a VC doesn't engage within 24 hours, they aren't genuinely interested
“I have a general rule I call the 24 hour rule which is in any, is there any engagement with you inside of 24 hours? And I might expand that to like 36, but generally 24 hours. And I'd even consider a favorite of a tweet an engagement. Right? It's something. Di…”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 12:14 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
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“I think it's unfair, I think, in the battle of entrepreneurs, the VCs to get money in the sense that a VC has been doing this for years, right? They're getting a couple pitches a day, years, and so their default answer is a no.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 6:57 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Disclosure
Science Inc. endured 3,000 rejections to raise $350M and build Dollar Shave Club
“At this point, I think I'm at 3000 plus no's. Right. And you know, what counts is the 83 yeses that we've had, and three hundred and fifty million raised against the portfolio, and now, of course, the Dollar Shave Club billion-dollar exit.”
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Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 14:37 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
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Most venture capitalists do not actively think about their portfolio founders
“The reality is most VCs don't actually think about you all the time”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 17:54 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
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