8 Investors aren’t your friends
This chapter covers
This is a hard but extremely important lesson to learn. You see, venture capitalists, and investors in general, are very personable and friendly, traits that are essential for them to be successful. When you are in their offices meeting them, everyone is extremely nice. When the partner you’re working with interacts with you early on, they are so friendly that you will naturally be inclined to think, this is someone I could be friends with. That would be a mistake. To them, you are the key to their next payoff, period. You and your company are an investment, not a genuine source of social interaction. Proof of this happens if, say, things start to go awry after they have invested. Then it will be abundantly clear they are not your friend. And if things go wrong for long, they will get rid of you—snap!—just like that. And they will never look back or contact you again.
I was looking to pad my CEO skills by first being CTO at a new company where I could soak up sales and CEO DNA. Who would know better about such an opportunity than VCs? I asked myself. What could possibly go wrong?