Anti signals
There is not much material on what anti-signals early-stage startup investors look for in teams and companies to pass, so I pinged some early-stage investor friends about what theirs are and shared their answers, anonymized, below.
“Founders who worked at WeWork, I have yet to see a successful WeWork alum company - for a company that was valued at “$47B” at the peak”
“If this is a founder who used to be a VC, when the firm they worked at isn’t investing, or any of the partners aren’t investing personally”
“I think these companies like Apple aren't entrepreneurial for many reasons but the biggest one re Apple is that they work in silos. Bc ppl don’t know what other groups do, so I don’t think you learn that much on company building imo outside of the product you’re working on”
“ARR that is bogus :) Lying is bad”
“Founders whose customer/user validation is only their friends. Validating with ppl outside their circle to know if the pain is real. If it’s just friends they often just say nice things because they like them”
“MBA”
“Appearing on crowdfunding platforms”
“Co CEO titles”
“I think lack of customer and user calls if they’re B2B”
“Low energy “
“History of unethical behavior”
“Any founder who is ex apple or spotify i avoid”
“I generally don’t prefer infra people from Google since they have so much tooling already given to them”
“If the founder’s been working on their startup for 12+ months and doesn’t have revenue (if b2b) or some signs of positive consumer traction (if b2c). The exceptions: If the company pivoted or it’s the type of business that requires more R&D or hardware development”
“I've never done an uncapped note before”
UPDATE
I received more, sharing them below:
“Bridge rounds”
“Founders who can't be concise -> you schedule 30 min and then they talk as if the call was supposed to last 60 min -> makes me think poor time management & prioritisation”
“Founders who are waiting to go full time until they raise...”
“If they work with investment banks for their funding rounds”
“Husband wife founding teams”
“When founders that keep changing their statements, I'm raising 5m and closing this week to I'm raising 8m and closing 3 weeks from now etc”
“When founders are talking over each other or you sense strange interactions between them”
“Shotgun marriage between cofounders”
“Asking for an NDA before sending the deck”
“Founders from traditional banks working on fintech startups”
“LA based founders”
“Founders who aren’t based in Seattle, NYC or SF”
*** I didn’t include ones that mentioned individuals or funds (“anything XX invests” // “anything from XX”)