Simple answer: Only take meetings with VC firms and angels who have direct experience in the area where your product helps the most.

I mentioned to you in a reply, below, that my marketing software company got immediate YESes from angels who had been leaders of marketing teams and intuitively understood the need for our software. I think my record time to close an angel was under 2 minutes. For those who had never led or been part of a marketing team, it was an uphill battle the entire way.

Once I learned that filter, I was able to raise money more quickly, with much higher close ratio.

I doubt it's possible. Keep in mind that nobody invested in AirBnb until YC, and as I understand it, they were mainly accepted based on the strength of the team.

I've pitched to 30+ investors and got rejected....a lot. Here's my generalized conclusion: VC funding is like dating. Easy money goes for the hot sexy blonde at the corner of the bar in the west village, but it doesn't mean the slightly less attractive brunette sitting in the corner isn't the best catch. No one would dare miss out hitting on the blonde, and no one is going to fault anyone for not hitting on the brunette "she's uninteresting". My only advice is to understand first what the investors' thesis is and play your pitch to those strengths. For example - what markets, what they look for in teams, and what their fund's goal is. I've had a fair share of VC's be brutally honest with me on the last point with an answer of "we need just one billion dollar business in order to return our fund, so we take as many bets as we can to ensure we get one".

You could easily have made this point without degrading women.

Well, you got that completely wrong. What would have been correct is:

"You could easily have made this point without degrading men."

In his story he generalizes men as playing the fool and makes no generalization about women.

Yikes! To correct my straight bias:

There was no generalization made at all. He never made reference to gender of the person walking into the bar. It could have been a woman walking into a gay bar.

My apologies.

If you wanted to tie yourself in knots, you are succeeding.

The degradation that I saw was that, in the analogy, women are sexually objectified. Women appear in the story exclusively in a sexual context, where there is no good reason for that. The context makes it clear that this is normal and expected within the (male) OP's world.

"No one would dare miss out hitting on the blonde". There is a clear generalization here, that everyone should find blonde women most attractive, or at least be socially required to act as though they do. Perhaps women are also expected to find the blonde woman most attractive, or perhaps women's opinions aren't really worth considering.

You might re-examine your own gender and sexuality biases in this context.

>If you wanted to tie yourself in knots, you are succeeding.

I'm actually being sardonic. The political correctness police are a bit tiresome. My point is that, if one wishes, they can analyze any statement to be as sexist, racist, homophobic, etc... Including yours.

>The degradation that I saw was that, in the analogy, women are sexually objectified

If women are 'sexually objectified' by other women is it a problem?

Why did you overlook the completely racist message in his analogy? Assuming most men prefer blonds assumes white culture, which is racist since I doubt black and asian men feel the same. I don't know, maybe I'm racist for doubting that assumption?

Also if a character's gender isn't identified in a story, is it sexist to assume that character's gender is the same as the storyteller? I was guilty of that one too.

This where the P.C. police trip over their own logic and fall into the pile of B.S. they've created.

This really seems like a case where the downvote button could have done a better job than angry discussion.

Not an appropriate comment for HN.

Are you addressing me or the OP? Apparently sexiest brogrammer comments are ok. What isn't ok is a silent tacit approval.

"Yeah, sexy blonde, totally makes it clear for me. Thanks for putting it into terms I can understand."

If you had said that, he wouldn't have remarked about your comment. But that's not what you said.

Complaints of color over content, sometimes color is part of the content. Sometimes civility of the response downplays the visceral nature of the reaction. I revile at it, the revulsion needs to be expressed. My four words expressed my sentiments in the most correct and compact manner.

It didn't work.