Comments on: How Not To Impress People

By: Martin Edic

Martin Edic — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:38:17 +0000

The rude caller probably never considered that if you did invest he’d be working with you on a frequent basis- and why would you burden yourself with a business owner you couldn’t stand working with?
I guess this goes to the point that VCs invest in people as much as (or more than) ideas.

By: Dan Pingree

Dan Pingree — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:05:27 +0000

Brad-you were nicer than I would have been! That is a very bizarre story.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:16:54 +0000

Hey…thanks for evoking memories of being a VC. I used to take these random phone calls (I also LIKED reading randomly forwarded business plans). Every once in a while, you’d find have a really great and engaging conversation with a thoughtful entrepreneur (David Wadler of Twistage comes to mind, for example). Unfortunately, most folks seemed so hyped up that it was hard for them to listen (“No. We don’t fund movies, even if they ARE about the Internet.”) Keep answering the phone, though. Everyone benefits from THAT attitude.

By: Vicky

Vicky — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:49:18 +0000

I’m sure with that sort of attitude he will never receive any investment.

Best was your last line & thats extracting real value :
‘Instead

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:30:58 +0000

@Robert – happy to try to be helpful. Just drop me an email at brad@feld.com

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:23:21 +0000

@Ajay – I vastly prefer email (and there are direct email links all over this blog.) I try to respond to all emails, although I’m sure I miss a few every now and then.

By: Berislav Lopac

Berislav Lopac — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:59:18 +0000

Actually, I know a guy who is exactly like this; I would actually be certain that it was him except that it’s very slim chance that he was able to get your number from halfway across the globe.

By: GilbertZ

GilbertZ — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:49:41 +0000

Actually you can probably get two blog posts out of it by adding that after you mistakenly posted how friendly you are to people who cold call you, a ton of other people found your number and you had to change it so you could get some work done. Heheh.

By: Chris Kerns

Chris Kerns — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:47:26 +0000

That is so unbelievable….that is has to be true. People never cease to amaze me.

Funny story, though. I have a feeling you’ll end up going back to it often to illustrate a point. Heck, I’ll probably even use it to illustrate a point.

Chris

By: Ben Smith

Ben Smith — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:31:02 +0000

brad

you have given me a whole new way to look at irritating, obnoxious or frustrating behavior. I can now just remind myself they are actually doing me a favor by giving me a blog post.

By: Robert Dewey

Robert Dewey — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:18:08 +0000

Wow… and I thought I was bold for simply e-mailing VC’s asking not for funding, but for a few helpful hints. I’m always afraid of pissing off the wrong people, and I figured unsolicited e-mail was one way to do it. But making an actual phone call (which forces attention, unlike e-mail) and blowing off advice? Ouch.

By the way Brad, I’ve probably commented on this blog more than your cold-caller. I’m a 22 year old entrepreneur working on a startup involving sociality and micro-semantics. The goal of the startup is to create the largest user-to-user relationship map using a method similar to Geni, and by analyzing relationships between micro-tagged content.

Perhaps you could send me some angels or get in touch with me via e-mail for some good advice? I’m definitely pre-VC stage at this point and have a developer/co-founder working part-time. What we really need is to get a full-time paid developer and a dedicated server for the beta.

Thanks,

Robert Dewey
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rdewey

By: Ajay

Ajay — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:17:06 +0000

Thanks for posting this view. But at least we got to know that you answer phone calls and (may be )ignore like email, not sure how long that will last since once people find out about your attention bandwidth everyone tries to get in it and shrink it.
Anyways, could you post about what in general what is best way to seek your attention, if this is email then what should be subject line so it will not end up in your spam (obviously i have no idea of how many emails you answer everyday but just seeking standard way).

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:11:49 +0000

It is almost impossible to believe that someone would call you out of to blue first to ask for money and then to bully you!! Truth is indeed more bizarre than fiction…

By: Evan Solomon

Evan Solomon — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:53:27 +0000

Brad, thanks for replying to my email yesterday and helping me get in touch with some angel networks in New York before I had a chance to tell you how stupid you are. Looks like you saved me big time there.