The 3Cs of Venture Capital
Ed Sims of Boldstart VC, based out of NYC, has a great track record. I had the chance to listen to a recent podcast interview with him on “the Peel.”
Known for working with startup founders at the Inception phase aka pre-seed/ seed stage.
He mentioned how he works with startup founders. Yes, we know about the 3 key parts of finding, picking and helping. This framework is on the helping side and I found it to be really good. He calls it the 3Cs:
Cheer: when they are down & things aren’t working
Challenge: when they feel invincible
Chill: know when to leave them alone
I love it. As a trusted advisor and investor, it’s your job to be as helpful to your founders as possible. But not in the asinine “founder friendly” practice that developed in the last decade of pandering to whatever a founder wants & just being a “YES” man.
In theory, you as an investor should have other experience and pattern matching that would be helpful for the founder.
If you disagree with the direction of the startup, you owe it to the founder to speak up. Your role is to help the founders get to the best decision possible by asking the hard questions and helping them look around corners.
At minimum, it’s to do no harm and only speak on things you have experience or expertise in. If you don’t know, say so and don’t waste a founder’s valuable time.
Early in my career, I was too much on the “challenge” side, maybe a bit more brutal than challenging. But as I learned, you need different tools for different situations & different founders. This 3Cs is an excellent guide to know when and how to help as an investor.