Comments on: Rejection – Not By You, Really

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By: zeroth8105

zeroth8105 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:52 +0000

Hey Brad, this is for your friend, but some of the best writers of our era were rejected by agents, many many times. Stephen King himself, master of the macabre, Titan of the Top Ten list, received well over 2000 rejections before he was published. It really is not them, and I understand that for any sort of service that people provide, wether it be publishing, or being a VC.

Brad, I know you run something similar to Y-Combinator. How do you feel your incubator performs as compared to businesses that start up without the incubator?

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By: bfeld

bfeld — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:52 +0000

Re: Incubator vs. no-incubator – totally different things aimed at different entrepreneurs. Any assessment that I’d make about TechStars is superfluous as these are such early stage companies that it’ll take a few years to really ascertain how they are doing. Given that, I still don’t think there is a clear comparison between the incubator / non-incubator cases since there is such a wide range of different type / characteristics of startups.

By: zeroth8105

zeroth8105 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:52 +0000

True, I suppose. Sorry I misunderstood the purpose of TechStars.

By: MJ

MJ — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:52 +0000

From the entrepreneur perspective – taking rejection is fairly easy. My anger only raises when the rejector fabricates an obviously weak/superficial/irrelevant excuse. Just say no. I have to keep telling myself in those situations that they obviously are uncomfortable handing out rejection. But if that's the case, why are in this business in the first place? I'd say just as many money people are as bad at giving rejection as there are entrepreneurs who are bad at taking it.

By: Ben Casnocha

Ben Casnocha — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:52 +0000

I think the pitch / accept-reject process is quite a bit different in the literary world than in the VC world. If an agent chooses to represent a book, he might spend a bit of time polishing the proposal, then pitching it, then closing the deal. After it's sold, there might be little on-going contact with the author.

For a VC considering an investment, he is deciding whether to make a long-term investment of time and money into a business and entrepreneur. He'll be attending board meetings for a few years. Etc etc. In this sense a VC rejection is indeed more "personal" because the VC is trying to figure out whether there is personal rapport in the deal. After all, many VCs say "We back people not ideas."

The agent/author relationship is more transactional and therefore, as your friend says, not very personal rejection.

By: mathoda

mathoda — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:52 +0000

Interesting. On the other hand, a book can be an extremely personal representation of the author as a person (particularly for a work of fiction) so to have it rejected can feel like a personal humiliation. Although most entrepreneurs are heavily invested personally in their companies, a company is also a representation of a team, so having it rejected may not feel quite as personal.