... We probably funded a rate of something like one out of ten solo teams.
If your startup is only in the development or idea stage, there is almost no better predictor of failure - I mean, utter failure, scorched-earth bankruptcy - than raising too much money in the first round.
A bubble in early-stage funding means maybe there's $300 million at work when maybe there should be $150, as opposed to a bubble in late-stage funding which means there's $20 billion at work when there should be $3.
The first time I went through YC, it was smaller, and the founders were younger. The advantage of that was that the set of founders who were older than us had really seen the Web 1.0 meltdown. They brought that knowledge to us.
While seed deals have gotten easy, Series A negotiations still often feel like the death of 1,000 cuts.
Seed investing is the status symbol of Silicon Valley. Most people don't want Ferraris, they want a winning seed investment.
I think 'Shark Tank' is targeting companies that are really trying to raise their very first dollar. A lot of them aren't really tech focused. We're definitely going after companies that are building real technology, either software or hardware, they probably have raised a couple hundred thousand already.
We own only a small percentage in Omnivore, but we manage it. It is basically a venture capital fund to help newer enterprises and provide them with the funding they require in their early stages of development.
