I hear that the VCs are flummoxed -- they have pots of money but they are not finding good prospects. The latest fad is to sprinkle little amounts of money around and hope they can pluck a promising seedling.
The important point is that there are VCs out there willing to write little 5 and 6 figure checks, for the hope of a real deal in the future. That has attracted professional deal makers, and this career looks especially attractive to people with weak technical chops for this industry but fancy they can make up for it with schmoozing.
Deal makers have a chicken and egg problem. They cannot get non-small checks without eggs in the basket. They cannot show any person with real money the eggs in the basket without promising future non-small checks to the future chicks. And sometimes people with money decide to not write the big checks until they see pretty chicks. Oops.
You were an egg. The deal maker here cajoled you to rolled into their basket with small amounts of money. And you were never given enough money to crack out of your shell.
I would point out that the deal maker is not screwing you over on purpose. But they may be telling you wildly overoptimistic things, while they are scrambling to see if any of a dozen different people will write a real check. When they refuse to explain, it is because they do not want to own up to making promises which they were not sure they could deliver.
As for Los Angeles, I may not have the best ear to the ground, but it does not sound like a top 5 location for recruiting tech talent. (I know you moved there, but the point still stands.) I would guess that those are third string deal makers who happen to believe they can rub elbows with unsophisticated money in the Hollywood area. (If they were really good, they would in SF Bay, Boston, Austin, NY, where the real VC connections can be found.)
I understand urge for anonymity in these stories but I think it would be really helpful If the names of these accelerators where disclosed so people don’t fall into the same situations. I know "clues" are provided in both scenarios but there are literally dozens of accelerators out there (four alone in La area that I know of) some of which a couple of my friends have applied too. Avoiding these type landmines should be the paramount goal. I know there may be a negative stigma on publicly bad mouthing an accelerator you where part of(sour grapes from a bad team maybe) but this isn’t bad customer service where talking about which could be subjective this is totally unacceptable behavior that is being detailed here and in that case anonymity is a courtesy they don’t deserve
I agree, but I'm not sure I'm in a position to do much were I to disclose the name. A comment or a story on HN! We'll all guffaw and shake our heads; then we'll move on. Your buddies a year from now probably won't know any difference. And if I'm remembered, at best, I'll just be perceived as a disaffected applicant.
I don't know that there's a good solution to this. I wish pud's fuckedcompany still existed, and there were a place for investors, too.
Don't listen to advice from folks with nothing to lose if you adopt it. There's zero good that could come from naming names and being outed as an outer. It sucks but that's the way the world works. Always best to sever all ties and just move on to the next opportunity.
Maybe we should turn it the other way. List accelerators withh good feedback and the list of startups and people we can contact for performing the due dilligence.
I'm actually going to be talking to some Los Angeles accelerators in October/November. Your story is concerning. Can you reach out over email? My email is in my profile. I don't need any of your personal details, but the accelerator name would really help me out.
Based on the OP and your story, I guess tech start ups have truly "arrived".