I want to understand how VC works

Why a VC behaves the way they do — it is a fund with its own investors, not a person with money.

The lessons, in order

1. Who the investors actually are — Angels, VCs, accelerators, family offices, corporate VCs, private equity, venture debt. They want different things — pitch them differently. (12 min)
2. How a VC fund actually works — A VC is not a person with money. They manage a fund with its own investors, and that single fact explains almost everything they do. (15 min)
3. What investors are actually assessing — Team, market, traction, insight, and whether the outcome can be large enough. In roughly that order, and mostly in the first ten minutes. (10 min)
4. Valuation, pre-money and post-money — The most confused pair of words in fundraising, and the arithmetic that decides what you own afterwards. (12 min)
5. Dilution — what you actually give up — Owning less of more can be better than owning all of little. But only if you know which one is happening. (12 min)
6. Liquidation preference — The term that decides who gets paid when the company sells — and it matters more than your valuation. (12 min)

All Founder Academy subjects