> In my head I thought, "I don't care how much garlic bread we sell...this is not why I'm on the planet".
This is a great analogy, because I feel like "I don't care how we optimized the conversion rate for the ads directing traffic to the website for your new data enrichment tool...this is not why I'm on the planet"
You are right, in many ways its related to the products impact more than it is the source of funding. I have found that oftentimes VC-backed products of all sorts, regardless of their mission, get backed into a corner where founders are focused on an exit over real impact. That the model inherently discourages really caring about your customers.
I had forgotten that when I was raising money for my previous company, there was a great meeting I had with a VC. I thought we were going to raise. At the end he said.
"This was fun. All day long, I have founders pitch me these SaaS companies that have found this tiny arbitrage of a few bucks a month. It's so BORING. But at the end of the meeting, even though I don't care what the product is, I can look at a spreadsheet, and say, the market is X, they're making Y, can grow to Z, and I can make a decision to invest without thinking.
When you're creating a new market, I have to think, and I risk losing money. I like what you're doing, but from an investment perspective, I wouldn't touch you with a 10 foot pole, but it was fun to think about what the future might look like."
The thing is, I really appreciated his reasoning and honesty.
That’s interesting.
While I’ve met tech investors who invest for reasons other than profit, all the ones I can think of do so to empower certain demographics. Never thought about ones who might do so because they are interested in a particular space.
But what are success metrics and OKRs for an investor like that?
Assume every investor is interested in profit, but then secondary, what else are they interested in.
I have a friend who is an African founder, and has really struggled to raise. From their experience, they say the VCs that focus on under-represented founders are often predatory in nature. As a white guy, I can't comment on that.
There are definitely investors who have themes around health, media, environment, etc.
The success metrics are still "how much money can I make from this", but it's also "how many lives can I positively impact".
So I wouldn't put these investors on the opposite end of the spectrum. It's a balance of "if we can help x number of people with Y problem, that's worth Z". VS "If X number will pay us Y, how much money can we make?"
It's a very subtle difference. You're not going to find an investor who says "I want to see Y happen, I don't care about the investment". That's philanthropy.