venture capital

“That's a red flag. It's one thing to be willing to do a flat round if a VC asks. It's another thing entirely for the founder to suggest it.”

“Just kind of what VCs think about is every round you want to somewhat double your valuation.”

“Figuring out how to grow is a problem money solves. A lot of founders we see have other problems that money doesn't solve that we're trying to get to. When you got a founder where their only problem is I need money to solve this problem. That is something that…”

“Because especially in fintech, a lot of VCs have gotten burned by customer acquisition. So in, in many ways you have to address problems That are unrelated to your business that have been created by other fintech companies.”

“When VCs hear black, they automatically think small. Every time.”

“And when you look at what VCs do with their money, just one percent of it goes to black founders.”

“I just don't have tons of confidence in VC. Like, they have a track record, and their track record speaks for itself. Nobody, it's not a secret, and so the onus is really on them to improve. You know, it's not on me to try to convince a VC that a Black founder…”

“No, in fact, VCs, everybody's looking away from these companies right now because they've lost a lot of money.”

“When a woman has to pitch, especially to a majority of men, alright, you have to come off tough. Yeah, that's fair. You have to, and it's, unfortunately, it's a catch-twenty-two for women. Either you're cocky or me. Yeah, if that was a man standing up here and…”

“Once you sell a part of your company, you're kind of on the hook to sell the whole company.”

“I've seen so many businesses get crushed under the weight of, like, raising VC too early, right? And businesses that would otherwise be really healthy big businesses that just kind of never got their start because investors were expecting 300% growth year on y…”

“So, so I don't back companies based on this idea that you're going to get a lot of money, and then hopefully, because you're a good guy, you're going to figure it out.”

“So I've managed to raise almost that amount. We have so many VCs that are so interested in us right now that I think that we're gonna end up just securing a seed round, a proper seed round of 1.5.”

“Once you get VCs involved, I'm not saying we won't do this, but they just, there's a lot of complications. They want board seats, they want warrants, they want a lot more information, and the angel investors, I think, give us more autonomy as a company to kind…”

“The traditional VC model doesn't work for me personally. I don't want to go back and have to raise more money every single year. I don't want to have to be pushed to grow and scale when, you know, it may not be the time because sometimes it takes longer than y…”

“You know, I think the only way to make money in VC is to take a non-consensus view that turns out to be right.”

“Like I am glad about getting to people in five years instead of 10, if we were doing banquet fundraisers and passing the hat for donations, it's all about how can we help people across the country experiencing homelessness the fastest. And if we need to make s…”

“I don't see any VC wanting to say to their investors that they made all this money off of this type of program.”

“You've got to right size your business for the stage that you're in. You can't shoot for the moon straight away. First, you've got to get your plane off the ground at Kitty Hawk. So, What you have to do is find a way to get your first investors to buy into the…”

“Only 2.2% of the hundred and thirty billion in venture dollars last year went to female founders.”

“I don't know if you guys know the statistics, but last year, Digital Undivided produced a report called Project Diane, and out of all the venture capital that was raised from 22,009 until that year, only .6% of it went to Black female founders.”

“So first off, I think even in a world without COVID for a consumer app like this, I think VCs are very cautious just in general for consumer apps. There are only a handful of VCs that want to do them at an early stage. And I think in particular, when VCs do in…”