Besides missing good investments, the emphasis on the partner pitch leads VCs to invest in bad companies. An investor friend of mine was recently talking about a failed startup he invested in:
“
Toward the end of the company, when things were going very badly, I went in and spent a day sitting with the entrepreneur and watching him work. At that point I realized his one skill in life was pitching investors. He had no idea how to manage people, build a product, get stuff done, etc.
“The current early-stage VC process is optimized to favor people who are good at pitching partnerships, not necessarily people good at creating successful startups.
cdixon.org / Pitching the VC partnership
Sounds a lot like politicians: good at getting elected.
