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Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann on the 3 lessons he learned about raising venture capital

October 15, 2024

“There are lots of ways for investors to say to no to you and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard all of them… And I’ve learned three important lessons that I think any entrepreneur should know if they’re starting the kind of company they think will need funding.”

The three lessons Ben learned are:

  1. Investors are just people too. “Investors are just regular people… and even though they have a really good opinion on things, they might be wrong. That was something that was really hard for me to swallow because I really looked up to all these people.”

  2. If you need money and they’re the only person who can give you money, you have zero leverage. “There’s nothing you can do unless you hack that system and give them a reason that you should have the leverage. And those reasons generally are fear of losing the deal or the belief that this thing is just going to be so big that whether they give you money or not, you’re just going to be wildly successful.”

  3. The future is unwritten. “People can tell you that you should be more technical. They can tell you that you’re in the wrong market. They can tell you all these things, and those things might be true, and you should assess them for yourself. But you shouldn’t take it on face because they could be wrong. And in the back of your head, you have to remember that for all the millions of dollars venture capital investors have made and for all of the IPO certificates on the wall, there are things that they passed on, and those are the things that actually haunt them at night. And if you can convince somebody that you just might be the one that’s going to beat the odds, you can be successful. And it’s a general attitude that I think is important, whether you’re recruiting or raising money.”