Why Startups Are Like Peacocks to a VC
Kevin Laws presents a cool take on why startups are like peacocks to a VC. More particularly why startups to a VC are like male peacocks to a female peacock, who faces the dilemma of deciding among the many candidates the best one to mate with:
"The tail resolves this dilemma. After all, it makes the peacock pretty easy for predators to spot and catch. It takes a clever, fast, healthy peacock to have such a ridiculous disadvantage and still survive. The bigger the tail, the bigger the disadvantage and the better the peacock has to be to survive. Though not useful by itself, it is useful in instantly communicating something that would normally take a long time to observe...
That's why VCs pattern match on credibility factors when deciding to spend more time with a company rather than diving directly into the details. When having such a wide selection of available mates, sorting out the good from the bad can be a matter of looking for a nice tail. Feathers in this tail include a high quality board of advisors, a good law firm, a good bank, management with a past track record, or the first paying customer.
While all of these things can be very valuable to a startup company, their value to a venture investor can appear out of proportion to the value they bring through their work. As a result, sometimes it may appear that management is sacrificing the long term goals of the company to establish the feathers necessary to get funded. In that case, they really can be peacock feathers - things that may slow down long term success, but that only good companies can take on. In certain models where significant funding can make the difference between success and failure, those actions may be required to succeed at all."
