With the @ycombinator demo day going on (congrats to everyone btw) I wanted to share some of my experience with taking venture capital (I’ve raised up to a series B and then failed with Shyp)

Only take VC if your business deserves it. Do you need capital up front to build a product before you can eventually be profitable? Can you return at least 10x on each round to investors if you are successful?

Is your business defensible enough that someone can’t copy it easily?

Partner with a specific partner of a VC at each round that understands your business, is very excited about your company and understands why you are unique vs any other competing solution in the market

VC brands do matter for recruiting, acquiring B2B customers and future funding rounds

Don’t pay any attention to the extra services VCs offer. You need to build those internally and if you don’t you will fail anyway

Partner with a VC partner that has as much to prove as you do. As much as a big name partner feels amazing they will be so busy and your incentives just aren’t aligned

I've taken all of these learning to start @AirhouseHQ with my partner @shsiwak and we decided to go the venture route. However it is not for every company.