give-to-get

Definition

The VC expectation that founders will make introductions, provide advice, and help other portfolio companies in exchange for investment and support. Networking as a contractual obligation.

Example Usage

Our lead investor has a strong give-to-get culture, which is why I spend 10 hours a week helping their other founders instead of building my company.

Origin

Venture capital community norms, formalized in 2000s with rise of value-add investing

Fun Fact

Some VC firms track give-to-get participation as a metric, creating a startup founder popularity contest nobody asked for.

Source: Venture capital ecosystem and portfolio management practices

Related Terms

Intermediate

scaling

The corporate fantasy of growing a business exponentially while somehow maintaining quality, usually uttered right before everything falls apart. It's the process of increasing capacity to handle growth—or in startup speak, the thing you'll figure out later after raising millions in VC funding. In tech, it means making systems handle more users; in reality, it means discovering all the shortcuts you took when building the foundation.

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Series A

The first major institutional funding round, where venture capitalists invest millions based on actual metrics instead of just vibes, which eliminates approximately 90% of startups. It's called Series A because it's the first of potentially many rounds, like academic grades but for companies.

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Advanced

reps and warranties

Legal promises in investment agreements where founders swear everything they've said is true and the company isn't hiding skeletons. Breaking these can result in personal liability, making due diligence the most stressful time to discover that intern you hired in 2019 never signed an IP assignment.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

founder-friendly

A marketing term VCs use to describe their approach, supposedly indicating fair terms and supportive behavior. In practice, it often means 'we won't screw you quite as hard as the other guys.'

🚀 Startup / VC

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hot deal

A startup fundraising round with overwhelming investor demand, usually led by a top-tier firm with multiple others fighting for allocation. The velvet rope nightclub of venture capital.

🚀 Startup / VC

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dragon

A startup that returns an entire venture fund's value through a single investment, making every other deal in the portfolio irrelevant. Rarer than unicorns and more impactful than a hundred modest successes combined.

🚀 Startup / VC

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