That's kind of a contradiction. If you can't predict consumer behavior why would investors give money to experienced entrepreneurs? From their point of view, they would be better off giving money to someone naive so they would get a bigger cut for the same price, while getting the same odds on the "predict consumer behavior" front.
I never said it's the same odds. Maybe "crapshoot" isn't the right term. Maybe "lottery", and its certainly the case that people who can execute well get many many more tickets. They were at 30K users at one point, how many companies get that far? Airtime is only a failure if you're trying to get a $1B exit - which of course they are because they took $30m in investment and that's the deal.
You could take your $30m, throw it at 30 different teams and pray for an instagram. But then you'd have to sit on 30 boards and keep up with 30 companies. Making one large investment is not only easier to manage, but also much more likely to succeed when it's a known executor.
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That's kind of a contradiction. If you can't predict consumer behavior why would investors give money to experienced entrepreneurs? From their point of view, they would be better off giving money to someone naive so they would get a bigger cut for the same price, while getting the same odds on the "predict consumer behavior" front.
I never said it's the same odds. Maybe "crapshoot" isn't the right term. Maybe "lottery", and its certainly the case that people who can execute well get many many more tickets. They were at 30K users at one point, how many companies get that far? Airtime is only a failure if you're trying to get a $1B exit - which of course they are because they took $30m in investment and that's the deal.
You could take your $30m, throw it at 30 different teams and pray for an instagram. But then you'd have to sit on 30 boards and keep up with 30 companies. Making one large investment is not only easier to manage, but also much more likely to succeed when it's a known executor.