Why “VCs Don’t Get It” Is a Startup Myth

Note: The following contributions are personal impulses from Max Eckel. They represent individual reflections and are intended to stimulate discussion and further thought.

“VCs just don’t get it” is one of the most comforting lies in startups. Marc Andreessen recently pushed back on this narrative in a podcast. You hear it everywhere: VCs are blind. They’re consensus-driven. They only back obvious ideas. It’s a great story. Because if investors don’t “get it,” your startup can still be a hidden gem.

But here’s the harder reality: If a company is truly venture-backable, a lot of very smart people will eventually be looking at it. That’s literally their job. And they’re competing to find it first. Many of them would love to prove they are smarter than everyone else. You see this very clearly in environments where founders, operators, angels, and VCs are tightly connected. Ideas travel fast. People talk. Deals get shared. Not because everyone agrees. But because nothing stays invisible for long.

So what explains the “they didn’t get it” cases? According to Andreessen, usually one of three things:

• The idea is off

Not “ahead of its time.” Just wrong, badly positioned, or solving a non-problem.

• The setup is broken

Wrong market, wrong structure, wrong incentives. There’s usually a structural reason it looks like a “diamond in the rough.”

• The founder made it hard to invest

Overly complex terms. Distrust in investors. Friction in the process. Sometimes the company isn’t overlooked. It’s avoided.

Yes, there are exceptions. Uber once sat on AngelList without immediate uptake. But building your strategy around being the exception is a dangerous game. The more useful question is not: “Why don’t investors get this?” It’s: “What are investors seeing that I’m not?”

The best venture outcomes are rarely invisible. They’re non-consensus… but legible. And when something is legible, it spreads. The right person sees it. Shares it. Introduces you. Invests. In highly connected ecosystems like WHU, visibility is rarely the problem. Lack of interest is feedback.

That’s the moment to become very honest about what’s missing. Because strong communities don’t just create opportunities. They also remove excuses.

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