Founder vs Investor

The Honest Truth About Venture Capital from Startup to IPO

By: Elizabeth Joy Zalman, Jerry Neumann

Narrated by: Elizabeth Joy Zalman, Jerry Neumann, Andrew Magnusson

Read by the authors.

“The rarest of business books, one that provides genuinely actionable counsel delivered without empty cliches.” – KIRKUS

How many world-changing startups will fail because the founders and investors never figure out how to work together? Founder Elizabeth Zalman and Investor Jerry Neumann square off in this one-of-a-kind book, exposing how startups are built, broken, and fought over.

Every iconic tech company was once a startup. And while these companies like to paint an origin story full of surefooted confidence, the truth is usually something different: the early life of most startups is pure chaos.

This chaos comes from the vastly different motivations and incentives between those with the vision and those with the money. From fundraising paranoia to boardroom coups, Zalman and Neumann train their inimitable voices on the gulf between what founders and investors promise to do and what they end up actually doing.

Founder vs Investor is the brutal truth, from each side’s perspective, of the pitfalls of this tenuous relationship—where bad blood can turn sure things into shattered dreams. It is the only book written by insiders with the temerity to pull back the curtain on the world of high growth venture-backed startups.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Elizabeth Joy Zalman and Jerry Neumann (P)2023 HarperCollins Leadership

Required reading for founders

There is so much practical advice in this book if you want to become a founder and take on VC money. The ability to see things from both viewpoints really helps to clarify the motivations behind actions that cause conflict to occur and will help founders navigate this world better. I also hope it will help VCs understand founders a bit better too.

Canary in the Coal Mine Book

Excellent book about the two sides of taking investment money. The founder took 70M from big name VCs but regrets the price she had to pay ( which included being fired by the board ). The early stage VC does a great job of trying to explain it to her but she is still upset.

The only thing missing in this book are numbers. After reading the book I looked her up company and saw that the valuation is super high relative to revenue which gives A LOT of context to investor behavior.
It explained a lot to me personally and this was not in the book. There is a reason investors were A-holes.

Yes if the company does not perform investors lose interest. 70M comes with strings attached which is common sense.

This is a cautionary tale everyone needs to read. Just because you can it doesn’t mean you should.

Must read for any founder considering a VC-journey

I loved this book, it is single handledly the best book on the entrepreneurial journey I have read! I have gotten so much out of it that my co-founders are going to read it aswell and have recommended it to 3 investores

Solid advice, better than so much Twitter prognostication

I mean that in earnest - over the past 10 years, there’s been a proliferation of “thought leadership” from VCs and founders on Twitter, blogs, podcasts. Most isn’t worth the digital ink it’s written with.

This book has a truly unique angle, with a Rashomon telling of two sides looking at similar situations from different lenses. The back and forth approach makes for an entertaining, engaging listen with concrete examples and specific take-aways.

Highly recommend for anyone focused on the startup space.

-DanO

Every startup founder must read this book.

As a VC, I can't encourage founders strongly enough to read this book. This will help you level the playing field in the unnecessarily opaque world of venture capital. There were parts of this book of Joy's story that were so hard to hear that I had to pause. VCs should listen to this too, especially new ones, to hear the awful things that other VCs do so they can rise above it.

Worth reading, especially if you are in it

Have your seen Seinfeld? A show about nothing. Same here. It tells you the story exactly how it is. Gives you the insights of the process from start to hopefully successful exit and the ever evolving relationship between founder and investor, founder and co-founder and investor to investor.
I love the way the book is written, first one and then the other on the same topic.

I also likes listening to the a book that is read by the authors. They are able to add the emphasis and the emotion into the words.

I recommend the book to all, especially the ones in the startup world, future and present founders.

A must read for both founders and VCs

This books is super interesting to understand the dynamics between founders and VCs. A must read for both.

Useful and enlightening

If you are a founder, odds are that you have no idea what it means to accept venture capital. If you are in the lucky position of being able to raise money, you must listen to this audiobook before doing so.
If you are an aspiring founder, this book is useful because it provides great information on how to set up a company and a strategy that will be valuable to VCs.
Overall, a great book!

There’s always something new to learn

I found the dialogue on the term sheet fascinating. Having raised funds in the past (and about to do so again) as well as having sat on the other side of the table as a member of an investment group, I still learned of new options to consider including in term sheets. Thank you!

A prep guide for any startup founder

I’ve participated in seven startups. I’ve invested in about as many as that. Had a couple successful exits but mostly they went belly up. And while I learned a ton through the process, having this kind of a book ingested before we worked on fundraising makes me think some outcomes could have been better with this knowledge, having been in both the founder and investor seats, I loved reading so many truths and candid feedback. Even if you’re not a founder or investor, and maybe you work at a startup - read this if you want to understand what is going on around you.