I was 2/3 through this before I realized that the point of the post is that the author's new venture is a better deal for founders than the traditional VC firm.
I spent most of the post thinking along the lines of "former founder offers free advice to other founders".
Sure, cdixon has his biases and own interests like any author, but he's generally pretty insightful. As readers it's up to us to think critically about what we're reading and figure out whether or not it actually makes sense. It's good to be aware of his potential conflicts of interest, but they don't automatically make him right or wrong.
That said, I do wish he would justify the "amount raised" and "pre-money valuation" line items under the "Seed+VC" hypothetical scenario column.
I really like Chris's blog. You didn't really point to a flaw in the core argument. It is normal to pursue ventures that you think are both good and leveraged.
Some of CDixon arguments:
For non cash intensive startups going after VC it's a distraction especially if they are not Top Tier VCs:
* VCs are extractors not builders
* they are on the board and are going to give their "opinions" and often they never were tech founders themselves
* best advice comes from having gone through the same thing as the founders: building a company vs sitting in (board) meetings
* if you raised with a VC at seed level and that VC does not follow up, you are dead (negative signaling)
* VCs want to "put a lot of money at work" to justify their work. The bigger their fund the more they have to justify their management fees and the less company they fund the easier the job even if risky.
* it is their job not a hobby: pressure to succeed or pretend. More at stake than for Angels or angels agregate in seedfunds. Angels most of the time already made their money and built their reputation. They consider more it play money and more ready to lose it.
* It takes more time to raise with them than with angels or seed funds
* VCs by default take prefered stocks vs common for founders & employees and can add many death pill clauses, vs more standard (even open source) less agressive legal documents in the case of seed funds, angels.
I spent most of the post thinking along the lines of "former founder offers free advice to other founders".