The Secret VC: Stop Asking "Who Else Is In?”

There’s a question I hear constantly in early-stage rounds that sounds harmless, maybe even responsible, on the surface. 

“Who else is in?”

Most founders have learned to play along. They’ll list their angels. They’ll hint at a ‘big name’ they’re chasing that showed some interest. They attempt to create a more inviting atmosphere by demonstrating that others have already committed.

But when an investor leads with that question, what I often hear underneath is something else: I don’t want to be the first check; I want someone else to take the reputational risk first. The thing though is that that’s not due diligence, it’s outsourcing your conviction to someone else in an environment that literally has risk embedded into the name. It’s called ADventure capital, after all. Unfortunately, it’s strangely common in this industry that also pretends to celebrate independent thinking.

If you’re a founder reading this, the irony is it actually has very little to do with you. It’s not about you being ‘unworthy.’ It’s about a lot of investors quietly building a process that protects them from being wrong more than it helps them be right. And that tradeoff lands on your calendar, your momentum, and your ability to close.

Let me say the quiet part out loud.

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1. It usually means you don’t have conviction.

Venture capital is supposed to be the sport of going first. You’re supposedly paid to live at the edge, to find the thing that doesn’t look obvious yet. So when the default move becomes asking who already “validated” the deal, something has gone sideways.

I’ve watched investors talk a big game about being contrarian, then immediately look for social proof the moment a real decision shows up. It’s the same energy as praising “innovation” and then copying whatever a mega-fund is doing this quarter because it feels safer to be wrong in a group.

And to be fair, there are rational reasons to care who’s on the cap table. There are genuinely bad actors. There are people you might not want to be in business with for the next decade. But that’s a nuance, not an excuse to turn every deal into a contest of who has the best imaginary friend.

The bigger issue is what that question does to founders. It makes them think their job is to stack names instead of building a company. It trains them to perform credibility instead of earning it in the market. And it gives investors a socially acceptable way to avoid saying yes or no (the latter of which is already a problem around here.)

Which brings me to the part that should embarrass us as venture capitalists.

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If you wait for someone else to go first, you’re not reducing uncertainty, you’re just delaying it and making founders wait, which they pay for in the loss of their time.

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2. Do your diligence: make an independent decision.

If you’re an investor and you’ve done the work - talked to customers, checked references, understood why this company wins - then you should be able to decide without needing someone else to co-sign it. That’s the job, after all.

I’ve had conversations where someone basically admits they’re waiting for ‘a signal’ from another fund, another investor, another institution - anyone else - because it helps them justify the decision to their investment committee, their LPs, or quiets their own fears. And I get the psychology. Being wrong alone feels worse than being wrong in a crowd.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: in venture, everyone can still be wrong. The ‘smart money’ can be wrong. The famous investor can be wrong. If you wait for someone else to go first, you’re not reducing uncertainty, you’re just delaying it and making founders wait, which they pay for in the loss of their time.

That's why I'm allergic to the whole ‘waiting for validation’ pattern. If you believe it’s a fit and you’ve done enough diligence to be comfortable, then make your own call. The information is always incomplete anyway.

And yes, this is where some investors will protest: “But we’re trying to help founders build the best syndicate of investors, to maximize their chance of success.”

No. Sometimes you’re trying to build the safest narrative for yourself.

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3. Stop the slow no’s. Make real commitments.

There’s a specific behavior that “who else is in?” often produces: what I call the slow no. It is also known in the wild by its other names: the perpetual maybe, the meeting after the meeting, The ‘keep us posted’ that lasts until the round is closed.

Founders hate this for obvious reasons. They can’t plan. They can’t stack a round. They can’t create real momentum if half the checks are conditional only on the existence of other checks from particular investors.

So here’s a practical alternative I’d like to push in this forum: if you like the company, commit in a way the founder can use. Give them a clear, bounded yes with a condition tied to the round, not to other people’s reputations. Something like: we’ll write our check if you close the rest. That allows a founder to credibly say they have a committed investor and use that to finish the job.

Notice what this does:

- It forces you, the investor, to stand behind your diligence.

- It removes the weird “I’m in if someone cooler is in” dynamic.

- It helps the founder move the round forward without theatrics.

It also draws a clean line between two things I think investors conflate: collecting co-investor data (fine) and using co-investors as a substitute for conviction (not fine).

And if you’re thinking, “That feels risky,” then I’d invite you to sit with that discomfort for a moment and remember that venture is risk. The whole point is underwriting uncertainty with imperfect info at your disposal. If the only way you can participate is by waiting for someone else to reduce your emotional exposure, you’re not investing… you’re following. And you don’t want to be a follower now, do you my Patagonia-vest wearing friend?

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4. Consensus investing is downside-optimization dressed up as discipline.

I’ve said this in other contexts and I’ll keep saying it: venture is primarily about upside. Yes, you manage downside where you can, but if your primary operating mode is to minimize embarrassment, you’re in the wrong asset class.

Consensus investing - waiting for the crowd, relying on names, looking for social proof - functions as a kind of downside hedge. If the deal fails, you can say, “Well, everyone else liked it too.” Which is emotionally soothing I’m sure, but not actually an investment thesis.

And the ‘name-following’ thing cuts both ways. I’ve seen people invest with minimal diligence because a respected investor was in, assuming that person must know something they don’t. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it’s just survivorship bias in a sports coat. Famous investors have plenty of misses too.

If you want an asset class where following the herd is a coherent strategy, go buy index funds. 

In early-stage venture, ‘safe’ doesn’t exist. Get over it.

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5. Waiting doesn’t guarantee a better decision.

One reason investors cling to “who else is in?” is that it buys time. It delays the moment where you might be wrong. It turns uncertainty into a slow drip instead of a clean gulp.

But here’s the thing: past a baseline level of diligence, waiting and gathering more information doesn’t necessarily improve decision quality. There are diminishing returns. You’re still trying to predict the future. You still don’t get certainty, you just get a thicker spreadsheet.

This is where I think a lot of our industry confuses motion with rigor. More meetings, more references, more “let’s circle back” does not automatically mean more truth. Sometimes it just means you’ve built a process that feels responsible, but just functions as unnecessary delay.

And founders feel that. They feel when you’re leaning forward, and they feel when you’re stalling. They also learn - quickly - who is capable of a clean yes or a clean no.

If you’re an investor, you should want to be in the first category. Not because founders need you. Because your reputation in this ecosystem is your real currency, and a “slow no” is one of the fastest ways to light it on fire.

I’ll close with a challenge that’s mostly aimed at my own side of the table.

If you like a company, stop waiting for other investors to give you permission to believe what you already believe. Do the work you claim to do, then make your call. If you need co-investor data for tracking, fine, collect it. But don’t make a founder’s momentum contingent on your need for social proof.

And if you don’t like the company, do us all a favor and say no quickly. The market is hard enough without us turning indecision into a personality trait.

Venture is supposed to be about going first. It’s about time we all acted like it around here.

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The Secret VC is a genuine and experienced investor, based here in the Midwest. They will remain anonymous as long as they choose to, so please don’t ask us who they are. The goal here is to inform, and share some home truths while we’re at it. If you’d like to submit a topic or questions to be covered by The Secret VC, then go ahead and contact us here.