Why Great Advisors Give Terrible Startup Advice

Bad startup advice usually comes from smart, successful, well-meaning people. That's exactly what makes it so hard to catch.

A prototype-stage hardware founder was told by a reputable investor at a large VC firm never to raise less than $5 million, which implies a valuation around $20 million. That ask would have gotten her laughed out of every investor meeting I've ever sat in. The investors I actually work with would want to see $750,000 at $3 to $4 million pre-money.

He wasn't running a scam. He was answering a question about a company that wasn't hers.

Every piece of startup advice is aimed at a specific company, real or imagined. It assumes a stage, a level of capital intensity, an opportunity size, and something about what the founder actually wants. Advisors rarely state those assumptions out loud, and most aren't even aware of them. Your job isn't to decide whether the advice is good. It's to work out what company it was built for, and whether that's yours.

In this episode I cover how that $20 million valuation would have wrecked her next round and burned her best investors, the handful of advisors genuinely worth running from, including success fees that are illegal in the US unless the person is a registered broker-dealer, and why advice from the most credible sources is the hardest to question.

Then I get into where the same mismatch shows up outside fundraising, in process, in pricing, and in technology decisions. How much scrutiny a piece of advice deserves, scaled to how hard it would be to undo. What valuation methodologies are really used for, which is not what you'd hope. And the bias built into my own videos, stated plainly, so you can discount me appropriately.

It comes down to two questions. Is this advice for you? And how hard would it be to undo?

Links

Book a first call with me, one hour, $500, refundable if we're not a fit: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/first-council-call?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=ep134-advisors

Full write-up: https://ftb.bz/134B

Watch the video version: https://ftb.bz/134V

Free fundraising toolkit: https://ftb.bz/raise

Notes

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