I found a bunch of “first check” VCs but out of the ~30 I contacted, only 4 responded with some level of, “Ahh, that market hasn’t been proven but keep in touch!”
With YC it’s, “You didn’t get selected but keep trying!”
The only need I have for VC money is freedom to work on my ideas full-time and continue to feed my family. I guess I’ll keep bootstrapping.
A close friend once told me, “Rejection is protection and redirection.” (:
As an example, let's say you owned the Handshake TLD .testmasterflex…you'd be able to create SLDs (domains) and manage everything quite easily with my software. Currently, Handshake is in its second year and the ecosystem is quite barren so it's not friendly for non-devs. I have ~1k TLDs and setup websites secured with DANE and DNSSEC for ~900 of them. It was tedious, to say the least.
You may be thinking, “Okay, but hasn’t this been tried before? What makes Handshake so different?”
What I’ve gathered is, while alt‑roots have come and gone over time, Handshake came along at a great time; with a bunch of investment and an incentivized rollout to get developers interested in building upon it…and it’s working.
We’ve got ICANN‑accredited registrars like Porkbun, Encirca, and Namecheap selling Handshake domains. Namecheap even owns a handful of Handshake TLDs! The parent company of Porkbun, Top Level Design, operates .gay and .wiki on the ICANN side and claimed those names on Handshake. On top of that, we’ve got plenty of Handshake resolvers for your OS/platform of choice: macOS, Linux, Windows, iOS, Android, whatever. If that’s not support, I don’t know what is.
Anyhoo, lemme get off my soapbox to share some links.
I'd suggest really dumbing it down.
People don't care about blockchains for the sake of decentralization or whatever, they'll care if they can build cool shit on it easily though. It'll be easier to show when I'm ready to launch.
Initially, I expect volume to modest. The Handshake community will be the early adopters/speculators. Once the registrar gains features like a website builder and one-click install integrations (Wordpress, Gatsby, whatever), I'm going to reach out to creatives I admire to see what they can do.
I don't expect to set the world on fire or make millions within some short timeframe. My main goal is to empower people to build dope shit they wouldn't otherwise be able to build on traditional domains.
Slow and steady focus/growth.
- https://www.indexventures.com/
- https://www.sparkcapital.com/
- https://www.republiccapital.co/
- https://macventurecapital.com/
- https://www.chingona.ventures/
- https://lowercarboncapital.com/
- https://betaworksventures.com/
- https://www.atelierventures.co/
- https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/
- https://backstagecapital.com/
- https://panteracapital.com/firm/
- https://femalefoundersfund.com/
- https://www.kaporcapital.com/
- https://twosigmaventures.com/
- https://www.khoslaventures.com/
- https://www.generalcatalyst.com/
- https://www.socialcapital.com/
- https://angel.co/unpopularvc/syndicate
- https://www.sahilbloom.com/fund
- https://www.untitledventures.xyz/
- https://www.breadandbutterventures.com/
- https://www.sterlingroad.com/
- https://www.laconiacapitalgroup.com/
- https://www.malaikaventures.com/
- https://twitter.com/TheLizNunez/status/1557354399093198849
- https://theopportunityfund.com/
- https://www.january.ventures/
- https://www.lightship.capital/
- https://velocityincubator.com/
- https://www.barodaventures.com/
- https://www.alchemy.com/ventures
- https://www.bigbrain.holdings/
- https://hypersphere.ventures/
- https://www.visiblehands.vc/
- https://www.newmancapital.com/
- https://kindredventures.com/
- https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/
- https://baincapitalcrypto.com/
- https://slow-prod.herokuapp.com/
- https://www.sequoiacap.cn/en
- https://india.sequoiacap.com/
- https://twitter.com/susanfsu/status/1481332788859064322
- https://www.lererhippeau.com/
- https://www.cooleygo.com/what-you-should-know-about-safes/
- https://www.operatorlps.com/
- https://www.bananacapital.vc/
- https://www.overlookedventures.com/
- https://www.bbgventures.com/
- https://www.realistventures.com/
- https://feld.com/archives/2006/02/why-most-vcs-dont-sign-nda...
- https://angeltrack.firstround.com/
- https://www.allvuesystems.com/
- https://forerunnerventures.com/
- https://montageventures.com/
- https://www.nycfounderguide.com/
- https://www.forerunnerventures.com/
- https://www.noemisventures.com/
- https://www.reachcapital.com/
- https://www.designerfund.com/
- https://www.kleinerperkins.com/
- https://www.serenaventures.com/
They aren't all "first-check" VCs, just every VC I've bookmarked.
Everytime I watch dragons den I get the same feeling. You have $1m in orders this year, which should be a profit of 200k, sure I will give you 100k for 20% of your company.
YC is also very public that a significant number of every batch have been rejected a couple of times. So basically being rejected by YC is not even a strong indicator that you won't be a YC success.