Say yes to saying no

A VC is talking about the importance of saying no. Sure, of course. A VC eats “no” for breakfast and poops it all day long. That’s what VCs do.

The discussion from that post gets into the need for startups to say no to customer requests, which is different than a VC saying no to a pitch, but it’s the same answer. I’m not sure I agree with the idea that you should reflexively say no to customer requests. I mean, if you are trying to sell something then the customers are the experts on what it is they are buying. If they won’t buy it, then why wouldn’t you change to have it do what they want?

But those are not the “nos” that concern us here in the CreditCardVC community. We say no to VC before they can say no to us!

The most important no, however, is saying no to spending. We just had some good publicity over at LgDb.com, and with it came a raft of people wanting to sell us all kinds of doodads.
I’m trying to sell a new thing, too, so I’m sympathetic to the people trying to make a buck off someone who was just in the paper. My job, however, is to have more checks coming in, and fewer checks going out. Saying no is the only way to keep that balance.