A venture capitalist's reputation is defined by how they treat passed founders
John Glushik · Backing Grit and Innovation: Inside HG Ventures’ Unique Corporate Venture Model · Jul 9, 2025 · at 21:43
John Glushik, Managing Director at HG Ventures, discusses why respectful treatment and feedback for rejected founders shapes a VC firm's market reputation.
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“So a lot of the way you're defined in the market as an investor is how you treat those people you don't invest in.”
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Pitch meetings are the worst possible environment to truly evaluate founders
“The pitch meeting is probably the worst possible environment, in my opinion, to really get to know somebody, you know, and I'm sure everyone would say that it's a necessary part of the process, so that's okay.”
Founders who claim flawless past performance lose credibility during due diligence
“If you tell me that everything has just gone perfectly fine over the last few years, you might lose a little bit of credibility with me at least unless, because inevitably there are things that you have to work through.”
Investors cannot rely on cookie-cutter due diligence for truly unique startups
“If they're not unique in some meaningful way, then they're really not a good investment opportunity. If they're really unique, then you can't provide a cookie cutter approach to a diligence process.”
Any single member of HG Ventures' five-person IC can veto a deal
“We don't have a strict kind of, you know, unanimous or majority approval, but if anybody in the room has an issue with the deal, we won't be doing the deal.”
Glushik: HG Ventures has made investment decisions in hours
“We can move very quickly with the structure and we have, so we've made decisions in a matter of hours, right?”
The difficult startup fundraising and liquidity environment will not change anytime soon
“I do, I, you know, I do think liquidity is going to be a big problem. And I think it's translating into how people put money to work. We're seeing a very, very hard fundraising environment as a result for companies in our portfolio that are going, they're goin…”