Hey, Brad Feld – Get over Yourself.

I have to admit, that the kind of sh&t described below just makes my blood boil.

One of the comments from the website, TheFunded.com, indicates that “it’s all about Brad.” While he can be engaging, thoughtful and involved, he is also so full of himself that you want to puke.

Brad is an active blogger, and participant on Twitter. As a result, he appears to be very focused on building the brand of “Brad Feld” – which is OK, but at the same time, leads to instances of humorous gastronomical regurgitation (….aka…puking), and eyebrow raises that quietly enunciate the phrase…WTF!!

Case in point. A few days ago (Dec 20, 2009), Brad re-tweeted a comment from Bijan Sabet (a VC in Boston), that was titled, “We Gotta Do A Deal Together.” The focus of the blog was to lament the notion that no one ever really means that they want to do a deal with you, when they say, "We Gotta do a deal together." The phrase is used, more often than not, as a social equivalent to “have a nice day.” As a result, the six word phrase, “We Gotta Do a Deal Together”, is laughable.

Fair enough.

When Brad Feld re-tweeted that blog by Bijan, it would lead you to think that Brad agreed with Bijan’s sentiment.

Hey guys, I have news for you. Here’s another phrase: “What goes around, comes around”. In other words, if no one is offering or introducing deals to you, then perhaps you need to look at your own behavior.

Case in point. Yesterday, Brad Feld posts an article on his blog, ”Feld Thoughts” : It’s All About Brad ….(OK, so I added in the last part), titled, “Don’t Ask For A Referral If I Say No”

http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2007/11/dont-ask-for-a-referral-if-i-say-no.html

WTF!!

Quote: When I say no, I try to do it quickly and clearly. I try to give an explanation, although I don’t try to argue or debate the deal. I’m sure that many of the things I say no to will get funded and some of them might become incredibly successful companies. That’s ok with me and – even if I say no – I’m still rooting for you. UnQuote

Quote: However, if I say no, please don’t respond and ask me to refer you to someone. You don’t really want me to do this, even if you don’t realize it. By referring you to someone else, at some level I am implicitly endorsing you. At the same time, I just told you that I’m not interested in exploring funding your deal. These two constructs are in conflict with each other. The person I refer you to will immediately ask me if I’m interested in funding your deal. I’m now in the weird position of implicitly endorsing you on one side, while rejecting you on the other. While this isn’t necessarily comfortable for me, it’s useless to you as the likelihood of the person I’ve just referred you to taking you seriously is very low. In fact, you’d probably have a better shot at it if I wasn’t in the mix in the first place! UnQuote

Excuse me?

So much of the start-up and VC business revolves around networking. More importantly, if you don’t know a VC, don’t bother sending him your business plan, and then expect to get a reply, let alone some thoughtful consideration. If you know someone, your chances of getting a reply (though not necessarily a thoughtful consideration, improve dramatically). As a result, the other part of the VC world, which few people on the company side seem to appreciate, or understand, is that every “VC” knows some stuff, but they DON'T KNOW a LOT more. Most have worked for a specific company in a specific industry, and are now "experts." Others come directly from B-school, and know....well, you get the ideal.

In other words, they have no clue about the solution you are proposing because they don't know anything about the space. That's valid, but it won't be admitted.

Even if they don’t know anything about your space, they might know another VC that does know something about the space, hence, the request for a referral. By declining to offer a referral, what Brad is really telling you is that he doesn’t know what his VC colleagues are interested in. In other words, how much interaction does he really have with his VC colleagues, and how often does he get deals referred to him…since he is not referring deals to others.

Am I nitpicking?

Perhaps.

Perhaps Brad brings in his other VC friends to participate in deals that he is comfortable with, as he is trying to build a syndicate (in other words, he doesn’t have enough money to fund the entire deal himself, so he tries to bring in his friends, and by the same token, he is looking to reduce his risk as he brings in other sources of capital that may know something more about the deal than he does).

On the other hand, perhaps Brad is so full of himself, that he can’t see that his behavior is actually counterproductive to his goal.

Here are some other comments that were published in response to his blog.

From “Art”: I'm assuming that you have a narrow field of things you invest in and that you know others who invest outside that field. If your reason for "no" was that it wasn't in your investment area, wouldn't a request for a referral to someone else be reasonable?

I have regularly referred people looking for work to others when I would not hire them myself. We just didn't have a good position for them and I knew others who did. Your claim seems to imply that your judgement (sic) on someone is omniscient - which I'm quite certain it is not and that you did not intend that.

From Dave: It seems like there would be no harm, though, in offering suggestions as to other possible targets. The cleantech example is an easy way out, but I suspect that many people are more on-target with their inquiries and the reasons you're not interested are more subtle. Any suggestions you provide (even local firms that are probably NOT targets for the deal) are valuable. That doesn't mean reasearching it, or providing a referral - just possible targets. And unless you know the person it's all that you can reasonably give them.

From Jeremy: As Dave/Art said, I thought this was perfectly reasonable (because you, inherently, know more people in the VC industry than I do). But, no worries, the email to you is now cancelled, since I have no desire to clog up your inbox when you're clearly writing this post to avoid just the kind of email I was going to send!

…and Brad’s reply: Art - you are partly correct. I'm definitely not asserting that my judgment on someone is omniscient. In fact, I'm often wrong (and I say so in the post.)

However, in contrast to a hiring situation, I don't usually have a good sense of who to refer a specific thing to. For example, I know 50+ people that are making cleantech investments, but I don't know enough about cleantech to have a point of view as to who fits where (nor do I want to spend the time figuring this out.)

In areas that I know well (e.g. Internet/software) there's plenty of the same dynamic. While something might be outside an area I know and I might know other VCs that might be interested in that area, unless the thing blows me away apriori, I'm effectively endorsing it at some minor level (even if I say "I have no clue but think you might be interested" to the VC I refer it to.)

It gets worse. Many VCs don't really pay much attention to over the transom emails. So - by making the introduction, it's no longer over the transom. Hence - the implicit (even if I don't mean to) endorse it. Selfishly, if it's not a fit or a stupid idea, then my future "referral credibility" decreases with the VC I sent it to (e.g. Feld becomes a random forwarder, not a forwarder of quality.)

It's fair to then put this back on me and say "so Brad, you don't want to decrease your credibility with your colleagues by forwarding random inbound around to help entrepreneurs you don't know." That would be a fair statement.
I suppose that Brad’s “referral credibility” would also be hurt when he sends a prospective deal to a fellow VC because he thought that the entrepreneurs “appeared credible”, or “have an interesting business model”, or “you might find this interesting” – though he doesn’t know anything about the space. If you don’t know anyone that might be interested, how about being honest – “I don’t know anyone that would be interested.”

Here’s some news for you Brad: Admitting that you don’t know everything is…actually, liberating. It actually encourages people to offer to help. Perhaps you should think more about the concept of “not knowing everything”.

Isn’t being a VC about “taking chances” and “building companies from nothing.” Do you think it’s more important to build credibility with the entrepreneurial community, (who will thank you for the referral, and may ultimately introduce you/invite you into the next deal – which may be 1,000 times bigger than this one you turned down), or is its more important to build “referral credibility” with your VC buddies?

Here's another thought. (You can have it for free, as I'm feeling very charitable today). Perhaps you should understand that you are VERY LUCKY to be in the position that you are in today. Perhaps you should think more about the ways that you can "give back", and how many simple, unrequested acts of kindness you can do in one day.

Go spend Friday morning (Christmas Day) serving meals in a soup kitchen, rather than navigating the back bowls of Vail.

....there but for the grace of God.....

As long as “it’s all about Brad”, I doubt that you will get to this epiphany.