Q You, you all are, you know, have done fundraising and are fundraising, right? So I, I feel that this for VCs, um, and I think would similarly would apply to the founders. There has never been, uh, as tough time to fundraise. Maybe your seed fund as a founder would become easy, but your series there would be very tough. What, what's your take on that?
A No, definitely. I think fundraising is always extremely hard and there's no two ways about it. Like you kind of said, you know, for, uh, If you're building a business, you need one or two believers, at max maybe three or four believers, and as you have that, you have a runway, and you have to maybe go back to them in a year, two years time frame. In our business, you may have to go back to them in a three year time frame, but you need many, many, many more believers. And many a time, it's the external factors why they don't invest, nothing to do with you. Um, so I think short answer fundraising is extremely hard. So there is no two doubts about it. How do you go about it? Uh, you gotta have a long, long term horizon about these things. Whenever you're talking to anybody in my own mind, I'm thinking that I'm pitching to this person, not for the next fund, but for the next to next fund. And if something converts in this fund, great, because you're not, uh, you're not selling a product. You're actually selling an idea and you're also looking for a partner because the, one of the things that you also don't want is somebody who's coming in and can be a partner in one fund. Now, obviously all of us do need that in our early days, and it is very, very valued. But what you're also looking for is that over a period of time, can you build a set of trusted partners who can cut a check for…
AI assessment note: “I think fundraising is always extremely hard and there's no two ways about it.”