It’s just money
Happy Valentine’s day everyone! Because I want to share my unending waterfall of love with you, dear reader, I have decided to write a few more blog posts! Not because I have to, of course.
Last winter, I began interning as an associate for the K50 fund, the VC arm of the Kairos Society. The goal of the fund is to fund and support young founders tackling big social issues affecting the everyday consumer like student debt, health care and retirement. For those not familiar with what VC is, it stands for “Venture Capital” and is what everyone usually thinks of the moment startups and unicorns are mentioned.
As an associate, I help screen deals for the partners. This means going through pitch decks, speaking to founders and doing preliminary market/competitive analysis on the startups and the space they are in. Basically, due diligence. It has been an absolutely fantastic role and I have learnt so much about the funding process, evaluation criteria and how to assess startups.
Here is another thing I have learnt in my month interning at a VC firm – capital isjustcaptial. You would not believe the amount of money being thrown at startups with nothing but an idea; or the kinds of innovations that are being worked on. Yet at the end of the day, regardless if one closes a million-dollar seed round or becomes a decacorn, money quantifies, not qualifies (usually). In other words, capital does not give insight into the business model, unit economics, team dynamics etc. That is why Blue Apron is struggling right now – you would think that with a billion-dollar IPO, the business would actually be profitable. Trust me, if I had a billion dollars, I would be more than profitable – I would be able to pay off my student loans.
“Ok Kit, cool story bro. We get it – you VC. When are you going to return from San Francisco and fund us?”. Hold your horses! I did not actually want to talk about VCs or startups or unicorns. I had to contextualize the blog post – what I have been meaning to get to is: do not give in to mindless consumerism that fuels irresponsible capitalism on this glorious day of love. Just kidding (not really). Money is just money and, on this day, it is easy to feel awful for not getting your Valentine a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport with options because you wanted to get roses instead. That is fine! What is important is to spendtime– forget the cliché money cannot buy happiness. It can. But time? That is different. Think about it this way: you bought your beloved something to symbolize/express what you feel. Instead, what if you converted that to the time required to explain, fully, how you feel? A picture is worth a thousand words – but youcouldexplain it in a thousand words, no? So really, what is important today is the time you spend and words you say.
And on that note, I am starting a cryptocurrency called w0rdcoin with a planned ICO for summer this year. Those interested please find out morehere.
Best,
Kit