Infographic: Why it sucks to talk to a VC

Last week I had some drinks with a few investors while we talked about start-ups. We looked at some of the companies they invested in and some of the companies they didn’t invest in. They would say “We didn’t invest because they just weren’t ambitious enough” or “We invested in them because they saw a clear niche”.

As I heard that I started noticing some inconsistencies and wrote them down on a piece of paper. Today I translated my notes into an infographic.

Basically whatever you say to a VC can be turned around and used against you. You want to conquer the world? They will say you are being unrealistic. Have a great local opportunity and they will say you aren’t ambitious enough and you should aim at conquering the world.

So here is a list of things that you will always get wrong. Choose the answer on the left and they will tell you the answer on the right is the correct one. Mention the right one first and they will say the answer on the left. The rick, of course, is to work both options into one answer, without sounding like you can’t make up your mind. Hey, we never said this was going to be easy!