Q&A with Gil Dibner (HN London May 2014)
22 May 2014
@gdibner
What’s the best way to approach you if someone want investment?
- Get an introduction
- VCs are inundated by people looking for investment
- Give hard facts (revenue) rather than vanity metric (# of downloads)
When someone approaches you, what prep do you expect them to have done?
- “You need to be the world expert in your business.” -> know what the important questions regarding the business are
What turns you off a company
- Vanity metrics
- Attempts at deception, lying about numbers
How valuable is YC as a signal?
- Hard to get in, filters out low potential companies
- Some accelerators don’t accelerate much, ask too much equity etc.
Will London ever compete with Silicon Valley for investment?
- No.
- London got better for Consumer/Fintech companies
- World is getting flatter in general
- Deep technology companies harder in London
- Big acquirers are US-based
What does liquidation preference mean?
- VCs and investors get their money out first, before founders/employees
- Filters for teams that want to get big and are willing to take big risks
- Protect VC money, give founders incentive to sell for more than what was invested
- non-participating preference: either get back preference or share of proceeds -> not both (participating preference)
- nitpicking about valuation, interest rate on preference -> raises concerns about how serious founder is, small differences won’t make a matter if big exit