The line in the essay I liked best was:

> But there may be cases where a startup either
wouldn't want to grow faster, or outside money
wouldn't help them to, and if you're one of them,
don't raise money.

Having the essay earlier would have saved me a lot
of time and effort. For my startup, I tried for a
long time to raise money, and as in the essay it was
a huge distraction from the real work. Eventually,
at absurdly high cost in time and effort, I
concluded the more common half of what is in the
essay.

Since I wanted to try hard to crack the nut of fund
raising, I kept at the effort until I got some
decent understanding.

Also I had to conclude that VCs and I do projects
and project planning and evaluation in very
different ways. Since it was quite a while ago that
I was 20 years old, and I've done a lot of projects
and seen a lot of business, I prefer my approaches
to project planning and evaluation. Also, for my
project, my technical background, in applied
mathematics, is far above that of all but maybe 10
VCs in the country. There is likely not a single VC
in the country who could understand the crucial core
of my project, some original applied math I derived,
and only a few VCs who could even direct a competent
review of that crucial core. So, I just can't be
impressed by what VCs think of the crucial core of
my project. When I was fund raising, I wondered how
the VCs would evaluate my work; the answer is, they
wouldn't! So, they don't have a clue about what
they are missing.

So, net, VCs will evaluate my project based on
traction which should mean that, for me, a solo
founder with meager burn rate, by the time a VC
wants to write a check, as in the quote above from
the essay, I will no longer be willing to accept
one.

After the fund raising effort, I settled on the line
in the essay I quoted above: For me, and as often
in the essay, the VCs are just too much trouble to
work with to be worthwhile. Yes, the VCs are
trouble in fund raising, but also the VCs will bring
Board overhead, more time/money with lawyers and
accountants, and, then, in case of the success they
want, an IPO with all the Wall Street and SEC
nonsense. Handling all that would be a full time
job for me, the CEO of my company; that's not the
kind of work I want to do; and my hands would be
taken from actually building and running my company.

I see another point: In the US, businesses are
started and succeed coast to coast in big cities
down to crossroads by solo founders by the millions
each year. Such a business might be a pizza shop,
auto repair shop, landscaping service, big
truck/little truck business, etc.

My startup, with me as solo founder, is in
information technology (IT) which should be a huge
advantage: E.g., my first server farm will cost
less than the truck and lawn mower of the guys who
cut grass in my neighborhood, and the Internet
connection I need will cost less than $100 a month.
Moreover if I half fill the Internet connection,
then from simple arithmetic my revenue and earnings
in one year will be quite comparable with funds from
a Series A.

So I just view my startup as a one person pizza
shop but with some big advantages from IT; e.g., a
pizza shop owner needs to be in the shop for each
dollar made, and my server farm can be making money
while I sleep.

For PG's definition of a startup in terms of very
rapid growth, so rapid that VC funds become
important, that's not important to me. I need a
nice business; I don't have to shoot for another
Google and wouldn't want to manage anything that big
anyway.

A recent remark of Mark Andreessen is that there are
only about 15 startups a year that deserve a Series
A. So, the essay is talking about only about 15
startups a year and, thus, I am not disappointed the
essay is not talking about my startup.

The VCs and I will have to disagree on how to plan,
evaluate, start, and build a company. If I am
successful, then likely that disagreement will have
been a big part of my success.

The VCs remind me of the Mother Goose story The
Little Red Hen when she could get help only when
she had fragrant, hot loaves of bread coming out of
the oven and customers lining up to buy and no
longer needed any help.

For me, one really serious turnoff of VCs is that,
since they have really no chance of understanding
the crucial core of my business or how I do
projects, no way would I want to report to a Board
with VCs. Vinod Khosla has some recent remarks on
how helpful Board VCs are!

Another big turnoff of VCs is that, as reported on
Fred Wilson's blog, on average over the past 10
years, the VC ROI has been poor. Net, VCs do not
have a lot of credibility in business.

Another big turnoff is that too many VCs were not
STEM majors and have written little to no code.

Another big turnoff is that my startup, as is
recommended for startups, is doing work that is new;
well, there is some education for how to work
effectively with things that are new, a Ph.D.
degree; I have an appropriate one from a famous
research university, and nearly no VCs do. I will
have a tough time viewing a VC as a helpful
colleague in the crucial core of my business.