I know this was an extremely difficult decision Mark and I have an unbelievable amount of respect for you and your partners for making it. Can't wait to see what's next!
That's exactly it, Natty. And it really frustrates me when it's clear that firms don't want to do their own work. If they do, they'll find plenty of great companies here in Boulder that we're not investors in! (like yours!)
Thanks Rog. The reality is that we're never going to have the bandwidth or inclination to try to run the table on Boulder based companies and given the vibrancy of our market this will continue to be a great place for other firms to come and find outstanding companies.
I appreciate that it comes up Rob (although even then it annoys me) but I hope that very few firms (and certainly not the good ones) make their investment decisions based on what Foundry does or does not choose to invest in (for sure we have plenty of firms that call us up to follow on to our investments, but the data in my post show that plenty are making their own independent decision about investing here). That said, I recognize that it's a practical reality that some companies will at least get asked this and should have thought through their response. Hopefully that won't influence any other investor's decision.
Thanks Ari. The reality is that if enough people believe it's an issue, than it's an issue. Part of my strong feeling about this lies in our clear desire not to exercise this kind of power in the market, but part of it is also a reaction to what I believe is some laziness on the part of other venture firms. Why should they give a shit what we do or don't want to invest in. Shouldn't they be making up their own minds? What Foundry believes or doesn't believe about a company should be irrelevant to their investment decision. Once we have enough distance behind us in this fund we'll all get to see exactly how many times we were completely wrong (which if you believe standard venture math, in a 28 company portfolio will likely be around 10 times...)!
Thanks Ari. The reality is that if enough people believe it's an issue, than it's an issue. Part of my strong feeling about this lies in our clear desire not to exercise this kind of power in the market, but part of it is also a reaction to what I believe is some laziness on the part of other venture firms. Why should they give a shit what we do or don't want to invest in. Shouldn't they be making up their own minds? What Foundry believes or doesn't believe about a company should be irrelevant to their investment decision. Once we have enough distance behind us in this fund we'll all get to see exactly how many times we were completely wrong (which if you believe standard venture math, in a 28 company portfolio will likely be around 10 times...)!
I love it! It's funny to think of a start-up as both a positive (implying scrappy, nimble, customer focused, etc) and negative (young, naive, still small) term and various peoples' emotion towards it. Glad to hear that once Eric left you were able to restart Budget days! Having shared a few beers with him I can understand why letting him partake turned them into Budget Busting days <g>
I love it - the startup beer test!
Sounds like that company has some real challenges. Still sounds like a start-up, however, if it’s pre revenue….
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Invention