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as they should have tried to raise from high quality individuals first.....got a check from Andreessen Horowitz and the CTO of LinkedIn

Exactly the point the parent was making. Those are big time contacts. Somebody outside of the valley now has a chance to get $1MM(!!!!) of seed money for their idea without having to relocate and schmooze and network.

I'm as big a proponent of real world social skills as anyone, but this removes a significant barrier to entry for a lot of would be entrepreneurs.

Also, wouldn't a large number of crowdfunders indicate a better product-market fit?



I actually am torn on the subject. I'm not a VC, but I do invest heavily and regularly track various companies. That being said, I recognize my opinion might mean little, but...

Product-market fit is definitely a good sign a company is on the right track in terms of product. However, 99% of what makes a company successful is execution. A crowd funded campaign on Kickstarter doesn't need to even be possible[1] or it can be completely silly [2]. It doesn't need to show a 100x growth, nor does it need to exist.

On the other hand a VC will do vetting, to make sure the team is right to execute to solve a problem. Let's put it this way:

* A VC invests in a team to solve a problem

* Crowdfunding invests in a product/idea

A VC is a much stronger signal.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gnut/kickstarter-open-s... [2] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elanlee/exploding-kitte...


A VC is a much stronger signal.

Well, VC's think so anyway. Given the success rate of VC funds, I'm not sure that's actually true at all.


> A VC is a much stronger signal.

Sure, like all the folks that were in on Color and Clinkle, right?


> * Crowdfunding invests in a product/idea

I would expand this to state that crowdfunding would fund product/idea but not product/idea fit with market.


I dunno, the vetting of SV teams leads to pretty strange signaling behaviour of wannabe startups.




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