« Sarychev Peak Volcano in Stereo | Kaguya Spacecraft Crashes into the Moon »
Saying No In Less Than 60 Seconds
I say “no” all the time. I could start keeping track of the number of times I do it a day, but I’d guess it’s a minimum of 10 and occasionally over 50 times a day. When I type that, my first reaction is “no way, there’s no possible way I say no more than 50 times a day”, but when I think a little more, it definitely happens sometimes.
One of my goals is to be accessible to anyone that reaches out to me. Another goal is to minimize the amount of time I spend on things that I either (a) don’t have an investment in, (b) won’t have an investment in, or (c) don’t have an interest in. Basically, I want to “optimize my accessibility”. This ebbs and flows – when I’m in balance I’m very happy; when I’m out of balance I’m still very happy, but notice that I’m out of balance.
One of the keys to this is to “say no in less than 60 seconds.” Given that my email address is easily discernable, I get a lot of random inbound “we are looking for money” and “do you want to have coffee” emails. These are easy to say no to, but I also get a lot of not-random “we are looking for money” (e.g. sent from someone I know) and “do you want to have coffee” (e.g. sent from someone I know or recommended by someone I know) emails. And it escalates in relevance from there (and morphs into all forms, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, meeting, run, …)
Somewhere between 1% and 10% of these fit my a/b/c criteria above. I can figure this out from the first interaction at least 50% of the time and my first email response is (hopefully a polite) version of “no” that usually consumes a total of less than 30 seconds from beginning to end. Another 25% of the time I need a little more information and request it via mail. This has the side effect of eliminating another chunk of interactions since the person on the receiving end never bothers to respond. For those that do respond, I can usually figure out from the response whether or not I want to spend more time or not; if not, I’m still probably under 60 seconds for saying “no”.
The rest usually end up in more email interactions, a phone call, or a meeting. I try to limit all first meetings to 30 minutes so I don’t waste either of our time if it’s not going to go anywhere, although I’m not always successful at this (the wasting time part).
Now, lest you think this is “overstructured”, remember my goal: minimize the amount of time I spend on things I don’t care about which allows me to maximize the amount of time I spend on things I care about, while still being very accessible. While I don’t always get this right, I’ve gotten a lot better at it over the past 20 years.
All of this sounds a bit harsh. But well, a "personal no" is still better than a "standard no" or worse, a "no reply"..
What’s harsh about it? Isn’t this better than not responding in the first place?
This isn't a harsh policy – it is simply an effective way to meter a limited resource (your time). Clearly, the number of times you say 'yes' and it evolves into something productive tends to support this position.
I don't think it is harsh. I think it is probably about as good as can be expected for someone as busy and sought after as a well known and very public VC.
And the post is simply setting expectations for anyone that may want to contact Brad or other VCs/Angels (in fact, anyone who is really busy).
CM
NAACM – National Association for the Advancement of Cookies and Milk
– "A Cookie is a terrible thing to waste"
I've always found your immediate nos very thoughtful of my time.
Dudu
P.S. The discussion part of the posts load very slow to an Israeli user (the post itself loads in 2 seconds while the discussion comes up after ~10) – FYI.
I now exactly what you mean and say "no" all the time. But most of my "no"s are more about "that won't work". Folks think I'm a naysayer but I'm not saying no to the idea (although I do that too). For me it's really about the path to the goal I'm saying no too. Wish I had a better way to express that.
Now with respect to real "no"s, I wish companies evaluated their negative decisions to some extent. In most organizations, anyone can say no and the concept, project, idea stops. However, saying yes takes much more analysis, process and approval. I've always had this idea of writing a book called "The Implication of No" where I write about famous (or infamous) examples of folks saying no to what eventually result in incredible returns for those who say yes.
I would love to see examples of your polite nos. Are they a canned response or do you customize the no every time?
I customize them every time. They are usually two or three sentences.
agreed with your approach…..if we arent careful, our days will be dictated by others agenda's and not our own and bf you know it, we are trivializing/minimizing our own productivity… i know ive got to be more aware of this..
A quick no is a very polite form of communication. It is not harsh at all.
Providing a tidbit of feedback and a non boilerplate response is over the top.
Everybody has to say no. You can not always say yes.
I think Brad is trying to remind people how to do it/best practice.
The worst is a mealy mouthed non-committal response followed by no response.
Yes is great, no is fine, maybe is a killer
That's exactly what I was trying to say.
i love the style, i have several similar one, i usually wear them to work or shopping. Please come visit my site wheels when you got time.
[...] From Feld Thoughts: I say “no” all the time. I could start keeping track of the number of times I do it a day, but I’d guess it’s a minimum of 10 and occasionally over 50 times a day. When I type that, my first reaction is “no way, there’s no possible way I say no more than 50 times a day”, but when I think a little more, it definitely happens sometimes. [...]
Just piping in to say this post is highly correlated with a decision making (optimal time versus choice) post I was pulling together today.
Your spin on maximizing availability is well noted. Your time is valuable, your decisions must be rapid to preserve as much of this precious resource for topics/folks/conversations of high value to you.
Big fan of rational decision making, albeit I'm flippant & easily distracted by incredible future trends. It's the emotional twist on rational decisions which manifests our style.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate a (kind) no from a venture capitalist (and not from their assistant – or at least, some of them should make it a little less obvious). I received a one line, grammatically incorrect, little capitalization, "no" response from quite possibly the most well known VC in the world (or one of them, anyway). It was disappointing, but at the same time, it really made my day.
You should data mine your no emails and market them
I usually get very nice notes back from PR people after I take the 20 seconds to compose and send a No Thanks response to their pitches. But I still have to be picky about which ones I take this time for. Otherwise I'd be composing my little notes for spammers.
Nice cross-post of this on the Business insider. Very refreshing to see a familiar name, and our Colorado community represented on one of the most insightful of the tech news blogs, especially one that trends parochially toward NYC.
This is a great post, Brad. We all struggle with how and where we invest our time – and that struggle never ends (my 84 year old, long retired father still complains that he doesn't have enough time to get to all his projects). I wrote a post to help explain why VCs want to see everything and have the open communication, even if they invest in only 1-2 new deals a year: http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/vc/2008/05/vcs-an... I just hope all those polite "no's" I have to deliver are gracious and respectful as well.
Hah!
knowing how busy your life is, i'd work to pitch you in the subject line, use the body to ask for a response if interested, both our time is valuable, everybody wins!
As an entrepreneur who has raised money before, this topic is of great interest. My number one grief against VCs was their inability to a) say no clearly b) say it in a timely fashion and c) in a respectful way.
I agree with Brad 100% and applaud the clarity. I'd love other VC's to sign an oath to do the same, and entrepreneurs to hold them to it.
I don't buy the argument that vc's need to keep the door open by saying maybe or not saying anything. That's a sorry way to maintain a relationship. Better get the respect of the team by saying no, and if you can't say exactly why, say : "I can't tell you exactly why but no." Sure it would be better if you can tell us exactly why, but we'd rather have the clarity rather than false ambiguity.
I also think there are different types of no : No — no, not now — no, not for me — no but maybe x,y,z and no, never. We will understand these and appreciate your help.
If you're hesitant to say no to someone that came to you via a friend/contact, you are deluding yourself into thinking they will understand the unspoken and your friendship will be okay. We feed off of hope and look for connections — even if they seem unlikely etc. Friendships are strained when a favor (like introducing someone to a VC) is not clearly met (eg no feedback) Meeting a friend's contact but not providing clarity is like offering to take care of a friend's dog, only to let the dog run away. Yeah you helped, but … you didn't.
Also don't forget that engineers that may be pitching you may not be able to understand the subtleties that you think you are communicating by not saying no.
This was an interesting post and I enjoyed it. It is always a challenge to learn to handle one's time in the best way for a balanced, good life. I hope to become more disiciplined about being focused.
It sounds like the ratio of no's to yes's is out of balance.
In fact, I'd argue that yes's should be the 60 secs or less, and the no's should be longer if you can sense something is there but its just not clear yet. A pitch to me is just a novelty, and if you really want to pitch I'll just observe your pitch to your target customer and if they are sold then fine. I care more about the person and how well they know me and why I'm interested before I have to signal that I'm interested.
It sounds like the ratio of no's to yes's is out of balance.
In fact, I'd argue that yes's should be the 60 secs or less, and the no's should be longer if you can sense something is there but its just not clear yet.
A pitch to me is just a novelty, and I'll observe the pitch to a target customer and if they are sold then great, lets move on.
I care more about the person and how well they know me and why I'm interested before I have to signal that I'm interested.
[...] you personally make it through (cf Chinese Gordon at Khartoum did not), you need the strength to say “no” to silly ideas (a link to a post by Brad Feld). You need to be part of the solution rather than [...]
I remember one time Mike Maples responded to me with a couple of great no's, have you ever used any of these?
"My typical investment is a company that has reached $50k in monthly recurring revenue through bootstrapping and customer development. " — lol like that one investment in twitter.
He went on:
"I probably should not meet if I truly think there's no way I'll invest in less than 60 days. The entrepreneur's time is valuable, and I don't want to be yet another wasted meeting, even if we like each other." (lol–it's my time that's valuable, not his…)
But hey, at least he responded….. can't complain.
[...] If there is one benefit of employment other than rent a crowd friends, centrally located offices, a suggested social life, long list of can-do acquaintances, and importantly a transfer of substantial funds at the same time every 14/28/31 days : It’s that they provide or should The Technology. Or Just Say No in Less than 60 Seconds like RSS/Glue VC Mogul Brad Feld. [...]
[...] Feld posted a couple of days ago about Saying No In Less Than 60 Seconds in which he talks about the 10-50 times a day he has to say no to deals and meeting requests, and [...]
I noticed that no one mentioned the "yes that turned to no overnight" scenario. Goes something like, "Yeah, we are interested in coordinating something with you, someone will give you a call or e-mail this week." No calls or e-mails follow. When inquired about the delay, you get a surprised huh and the Shaggy line: "It wasnt me"
I would say that's quite rare, but it happened to me.. It wasnt part a VC pitch, but more in the realm of coordinating a multilateral cross-border transaction.
I agree with the post itself. I think what would help (but not easy to implement) would be to have some "my expectations" autoreply, to help with the incoming emails. Thinking of Google filters:
1. setup filter with keywords (you know what they are) to send autoreply or send manyally using template (what is expected) and then archive.
2. another autofilter to highlight those incoming that have done/structured it the way requested. It's the least they should do, if they really have respect for your time.
Would that be an overkill?
PSS. Have you seen the movie "YES man"
Good suggestion. No – I haven’t seen “YES man”. I’ll take that as a recommendation!
VCs are in the business of "No". 300 proposals, 10 investments a year, that's a lot of no's. All that to get to a few great Yes's, because most of them won't be great–just good, mediocre, or bad.
When I raised for Mission Research, I got strong along by a number of firms that didn't want to say no but weren't seriously considering investing. Drove me nuts. Wasted my time. Wasted their time.
blogged about it 4 years ago here: http://article24cc.blogspot.com/2005/06/vc-blow-o... tone is pretty annoyed…must have been a fundraising week
Like Nancy Reagan said, Just Say No!
[...] why there’s so many memes about how to best turn down entrepreneurs (see Fred Wilson and Brad Feld). It’s also why my philosophy is, “if most of the people that I see I’m going to [...]
[...] that’s why there’s so many memes about how to best turn down entrepreneurs (see Fred Wilson and Brad Feld). It’s also why my philosophy is, “if most of the people that I see I’m going to need to turn [...]
[...] in the context of how you invest your time is one thing – fellow VC blogger Brad Feld did a good blog post on this topic in the context of time management a few weeks ago as did Y-Combinator’s Paul [...]
[...] Daily Startup: Batteries Are Included [2] Art of Saying No [3] Saying No in Less than 60 Seconds [4] How Should VCs Say No – When It’s The Team?Thanks for visiting. Please subscribe to [...]
[...] It actually prepares you ahead of time: Now that you have actually gone through mocking that you need to raise capital from VC, you are well prepared ahead of time( you never know). This would help you for your actual 5-15 minute session with the VC where he/she can figure out if this company has potential to go to next level ( they can actually figure it out sometime in 60 seconds). [...]
[...] in the context of how you invest your time is one thing – fellow VC blogger Brad Feld did a good blog post on this topic in the context of time management a while ago as did Y-Combinator’s Paul [...]
[...] in the context of how you invest your time is one thing – fellow VC blogger Brad Feld did a good blog post on this topic in the context of time management a while ago as did Y-Combinator’s Paul [...]
[...] say “no” all the time. (My partner Brad talks about “saying no” in a great post here). In fact, I say no to over 90% of what I’m invited to invest in immediately. On top [...]
So, some tip about this issue are welcome and really sorry if my question is very simple. Thanks in advance
Thanks again for your help. Your site contain a many useful information.