2. Outline: VC signaling in seed rounds
1. VC signaling in seed rounds
2. Chris Dixon bio
3. Mark Suster bio
4. Naval Ravikant bio
5. 3 guests, 3 different types of funds
6. What stages of investment does a startup
go through?
7. The $ amount in a round changes based on
the public markets
8. Seed investors make decisions quicker and
ask for less control with simpler
documents
9. The cast of characters you run into when
you're raising money
10. What is VC signaling?
3. Outline: VC signaling in seed rounds
11. VC signaling is when insiders convey
information through their actions
12. Investors aren't the only insiders who can
signal
13. VC signaling is the action or lack of
action of people who have information you
don't have
14. Investment decisions are often influenced
by social proof and momentum
15. Social proof short-circuits investment
decisions
16. Social proof is rational
17. How do investors transmit signals?
18. Typical investor signals
19. When signaling matters
4. Outline: VC signaling in seed rounds
20. All VCs talk to each other — you can't keep them
apart
21. If you hear 5-6 people passed, you're predisposed
not to like it
22. 4 types of investor signals
23. In the good old days, supportive investors would
always do their pro rata
24. Supportive investors still tend to do their pro
rata in the Series B
25. Funds can establish norms and stick to them
26. Does GRP have a follow-on policy?
27. Do early stage funds do selective follow-on
rounds?
28. There's a difference between focused seed stage
investing by VCs and shotgun seed investing by
VCs
29. Don't give VCs contractual options on your next
round
5. Outline: VC signaling in seed rounds
30. Taking office space can also be a signal
31. If my existing investors don't want to
invest, how do I talk my way out of it?
32. Does a VC work against you in the Series A if
they don't buy enough of the company in the
seed round?
33. What are the pros of taking seed money from a
VC?
34. Anything I missed that I should have brought
up?
35. How to take an option-style investment from a
VC
36. What's your favorite blog these days?
37. What's your favorite life hack these days?
38. Get intros to seed investors with AngelList
12. The $ amount in a round changes
based on the public markets
13. Seed investors make decisions
quicker and ask for less control
with simpler documents
14. The cast of characters you run
into when you're raising money
- Individual angels
- Individual angels investing OPM
- Seed stage funds
- Multi-stage funds
24. When signaling matters
- 10% company is hitting it out of
the park and signaling doesn't matter
- 80% of the time the company is
middling and signaling *matters*
- 10% of the time the company is a
disaster and signaling doesn't matter
25. All VCs talk to each other — you
can't keep them apart
26. If you hear 5-6 people passed,
you're predisposed not to like it
27. 4 types of investor signals:
- Insider tries to do the whole round
- Do a little more than pro rata
- Do less than pro rata
- Pass
28. In the good old days, supportive
investors would always do their
pro rata