We Suck Less

I read an essay by Paul Graham this morning called A Unified Theory of VC Suckage.

I thought most of Paul's points were spot on and I made a note to myself to blog it.

Then I was flying through my RSS feeds and came across Brad Feld's link to Paul's essay.

So Brad beat me to it.  It's not the first time he's done that with a blog post or a deal and I should just get used to it.

But the funny thing is that Brad also turned me on to a phrase that I really like - We Suck Less. 

Back in the day when Brad was an entrepreneur, his mantra was that all companies sucked in servicing their customers at some level and the goal for his company was to suck less.

Entrepreneurs are always going to think that VCs suck at some level. But clearly some VCs suck more than others.  If you must fund your company with VC money, it pays to do your homework and find the ones that are the exception to Paul's unified theory rule.

Comments

[Charlie Wood]

OK, I'll bite. How does Union Square Ventures suck less?

[Rick Segal]

Spot on? Maybe I joined this VC party late in the game. First Brad says, yeah lots of this is right, then Fred says, spot on.

How is painting an entire profession with the brush "steals ideas" or stuffs companies with too much money, puffs up values, etc, Spot On.

I took a shot at replying to Paul's post in my little corner of the world:

http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2005/03/vcs_suck_shocki.html

The resulting comment thread speaks for itself but the larger issue is simply letting this large swipe at 'every' VC go unanswered with chuckles. We suck less certainly works for me as well, but gee Fred, Spot On? Most of it? Paul did have some good points and I'd be the first to agree with many of them.

Just don't think calling all VCs crooks or all Microsoft employees evil is good form. But maybe it's different in Canada.

Nice snag on the tickets!

[John McCarthy]

Having been involved with a turn-around of a company with some corporate culture issues, I was told early in my time with the company that its unofficial slogan was "We Suck Less." The people that told me that were , for the most part, a big part of the culture problem and were quickly no longer a part of the company. Now, when I hear this said inside a company, while I get the humor, I also need to realize that it could mask some underlying issues which might impact the health of the company.

[sucks.faster]

I think the first time I heard the concept of "sucks less" or "we suck less" was a speech Guy Kawasaki made at the first garage.com sponsored bootcamp thing back in 1999 or 2000.

A few years ago I was managing a software development project, and at a weekly meeting asked whether a certain critical bug had been fixed as planned. Instead of fixing the actual problem, the developer responsible informed me, he had made some tweaks that increased the system speed by 2x or 3x. My response: "so now you're telling me we suck faster?"

[Rob]

IMHO Sucking less is ok for emerging markets/technology while you enjoy the patience of early adopters and lack of competition. Suck less only as inspiration to do it right. Suck less as a state of mind and you are done- leaders don't "suck less" they figure things out and move forward. "First to market" has fallen on hard times. Watch the hottest emerging market, alternative fuels, as "first to market" returns as the hot VC button. Business moves too fast. First to grab customers, wins. See ya in Sept, 2005, when the new Flickr is biodiesel. Watch for the energy "meme."

[Dave McClure]

I believe the Guy Kawasaki reference was to one of his rules, namely "Don't Worry, Be Crappy" (you gotta give Guy credit; he may be wrong occasionally, but he's always catchy ;)

The point Guy was making was that if the overall general features of your product or service are DRAMATICALLY better than the rest of the field, it's probably ok if you're crappy in one or two specific areas. In other words, do one thing REALLY well and you can probably win the market.

Another way to say this is the old "i don't have to outrun the bear, i just have to outrun YOU" adage. In an inefficient capital market where entrepreneurs have limited financing sources, VCs will still get deals done -- they just have to suck less than the VC (or angel) down the street.

However, if the angel market starts coming back in force (smells like it), and if entrepreneurs start running their companies more efficiently (very possible these days due to lower startup sw costs), then perhaps VCs have to work a little harder to get 30-35% of equity, instead of the 20-25% that angels might ask.

Fred: i don't think we've heard the answer yet as to why you suck less than other VCs -- other than the fact that you write a pretty sweet blog that makes people go 'hmmmm'. ;)

Is that it, or can you back it up with other data?

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