Q: How can you tell if a VC has your best interest at hand?
Most don’t have your best interests at heart. Not you as a founder, per se.
But … dude … they are money managers. Not BFFs.
They have the investment’s best interest at heart, if they are successful VCs.
And if they are unsuccessful VCs, they have how their investment appears to be doing as their interest (sometimes but not always the same). Because every few Mondays they are on thin ice and have to explain to the other partners why their investments are doing well.
And if everything goes perfectly, to plan, and you don’t need more money from them, and they don’t think anyone else could do better … then it will all seem daisies and roses.
Some VCs are different, though. Some.
You won’t really know from a smile, a grin frack, a spouse dinner, even a peak climb or heli-ski together, or any of that superficial cr*p.
You’ll only know when something a little bad goes down, something tough.
Then you’ll see. Then you’ll see the “greed” a inch too far, or the lack of support, or the conversation behind your back. Something.
So if you have options — do real reference checking. And if you don’t have options — take the money. It’s all green.
