What Brad Feld, VC at Foundry Group and Co-Founder of Techstars, Wants Early-Stage Entrepreneurs to Know

On August 28, 2020, venture capitalist Ben Feld spoke with Grid110’s Elisabeth Tuttass about the current state of the world, what founders should expect the next few months and advice he has for startups that are considering fundraising.

Feld, VC at Foundry Group and co-founder of Techstars, shared that personally he’s been focusing on achieving harmony instead of balance during COVID, stating, “having harmony in your life allows you to have sustainability over time, knowing that you’re going to have your ups and downs emotionally, psychologically and physically.” “If you live with this illusion that you can keep things in balance, you will fail,” Feld shares.

When asked about mistakes early-stage entrepreneurs make, Feld opens up about the feeling of needing to raise money. “It doesn’t matter what you read on Techcrunch; it doesn’t matter what you see; it’s hard to raise money. It’s hard to raise money from friends and family. It’s hard to raise money from Angels. It’s hard to raise money from VC’s. Remember that money is the thing that grows your business, not the thing that validates your business. Many successful businesses have not raised any money.”

Feld continues on saying, even as a VC whose job is to give people money, he emphasizes “you can build businesses without needing to raise money.”

“Make sure that you are working on something that you believe you are put on planet earth to work on,” Feld shares. “I use the word obsession instead of the word passion in the context of this. A lot of people say: “Make sure you are passionate about what you are doing!” But honestly, passion is easy to fake. It’s almost impossible to fake obsession.”

You can read the full article by Elisabeth Tuttass here.