Who the Fuck Knows?
Startup companies that we review often give us product roadmap and targets that are so outlandish and almost too-good-to-be-true. It is no surprise that in investing, you are somewhat trying to predict the future. “Can this company do it?”
One Managing Director I work with summarizes it best, he usually thought about this for a second, and then shrugs, “Who the fuck knows?” Then he continued, “We will take what we know today, make sure there is enough value in the current business to cover our investment, and then write these AIDS-curing ideas as an upside.”
Who the fuck knows - there is no point in thinking too much. Take what you have today, make the best decision you can, and move on.
This is an approach that also rings true for the other side of the table: entrepreneurs. In creating a startup, you are experimenting with products and business models. Proving that the product is valuable, and somebody is willing to pay for it, is more important than refining it over and over and over again, which is one mistake many founders make. Andrew Mason, Lesson from Groupon:
Shit that you read all the time. The biggest mistake we made with the point was being completely encumbered by this vision of what I wanted it to be and taking 10 months to build the product, all the while making assumptions on what people want that we then spent the next 10 months backtracking on instead of focusing on the one piece of the product that people actually liked. You’re way too dumb to figure out if your idea is good. It’s up to the masses. So build that very small thing and get it out there and keep on trying different things and eventually you’ll get it right.
