Victoria Silchenko > Quotes

“The overall data shows that more than twice the money flows into venture capital from LPs than comes back to them in a given year.
I wanted to hold onto something positive from this industry—after all, I’ve met a few brilliant people in it—but looking at the data, it’s hard, if not impossible.
In a Freudian sense, it's worth remembering that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar—not everything has a deeper psychological meaning.
VCs have made it look like magic, but the illusion disappears once you turn on the lights.
At its core, venture capital isn’t as much a unique asset class as it is a troubled one. The industry survives by injecting more and more capital each year, while leaving the majority of limited partners stuck at the losing end of a pay-your-bid auction.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Now, if you live in the U.S., keep in mind that the average annual interest rate for a credit card ranges between 15-19%—while store credit cards and banks like Wells Fargo charge 25% or more.

This means you’d have to generate returns comparable to the best-performing family offices—entities run by some of the most highly educated investment professionals in the world, whose full-time job is managing wealth.
So, next time a VC thoughtfully suggests you bootstrap your business with a credit card, tell him to take a hike.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“I don’t think being funny is a choice; most often it is a binding call for any rational human-being with a sense of humor and a sense of tragedy. Both senses have to rely on reality, which begs for our enlightenment: The world needs more people saving it from useless projects than people with useless projects promising to save the world.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“It is hard to be a flame when darkness rules…”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“The wisdom of entrepreneurial life lies in recognizing the exact moment when it's time to move on to new options instead of trying the same thing just one more time. Knocking on doors is good—but are you even on the right street?”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“I am not saying that VCs are despicably evil (that would be investment bankers), but you would be better spending more time on building your business than building and polishing the pitch deck.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“For years, his biggest strength was his ability to mesmerize even savvy people with sales pitches for new, but sometimes flawed, products.” The Wall Street Journal wrote that in 1993 about a then 38-year-old Steve Jobs.

Today’s innovators—the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos—are salespeople too, constantly promoting and pitching their ventures to all the right people. And it’s not just customers or strategic partners—that’s what their marketing departments are for. It’s the people in the financial industry: venture capitalists, bankers, and Wall Street guys.
Did I get your attention?”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Let me ask you a pretty straightforward question—how would you define entrepreneurship in one simple word?
The answer is: SALE.
And how would you define entrepreneurship in two simple words?
No Sale.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Simply put, we need plenty of risk capital flowing into the real economy and real startups solving real problems. You see, if we’re living in an environment where small businesses—the real engines of the economy and job creators—are dying faster than they are being born, you start to wonder what’s wrong with a financing system that is meant to deliver the oxygen for new ventures.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Most of us eagerly celebrate yet another mega deal, cheering for a founder who landed a venture capital fund and secured a sizeable investment.
Now, let’s pause and think about what that actually means. It signals that our fellow entrepreneur has officially taken on… yes, a liability burden.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“I am not stating that every startup deserves to succeed or should get funding without effort. I am saying that the pitching arena should start shifting toward a reversed scene, where natural selection, in a Darwinian fashion, applies to investors pitching themselves—showing how they can help and contribute beyond just money.
Until that happens, our modern startup world can best be described exactly as Jennifer Lopez’s character put it in her 2019 hit movie Hustlers:
“We are all living in a gigantic strip club where you got people tossing the money… and people doing the dance.”
― Victoria Silchenko, No Limits: Modern Poetry For Modern People

“Simply put, we need plenty of risk capital flowing into the real economy—into real startups solving real problems. If we live in a world where small businesses—the true engines of the economy and job creation—are dying faster than they’re being born, it raises a critical question: What’s wrong with a financing system that’s supposed to provide the oxygen for new ventures?
Do you hear me, derivatives traders?”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“The saddest reality is that 30% of the clothes produced worldwide today are never sold.
Now add to that the fact that up to 50% of food produced is never eaten—it simply gets thrown away.
This should make you pause and reflect on one of the most disturbing examples of massive market inefficiency happening across every wealthy country—from the United States to Sweden (the home of H&M).”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“How can you be useful to the world if your main concern is how to become “fundable”? How can you create impactful products or meaningful services if, instead of focusing on market needs—rooted in social, economic, and environmental realities—you’re fixated on keeping investors happy, those who chase abnormal returns and easy exits?

How did capital, once an instrument to address the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges, become an end in itself—the most traded asset rather than the most transformative tool? When, in fact, it was meant to be the perfect resource for entrepreneurs to solve real problems and make our lives just a bit easier and healthier?
If anything, problems aren’t stop signs—they’re wake-up calls for those with problem-solving skills. They also reflect the depth of our awareness and intelligence.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Our boundless optimism is what keeps us, self-starters alive, but there is a thin line between being an optimist and being delusional.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“I believe that any meaningful change requires initiating the kind of conversations that make people uncomfortable. I believe in asking questions – and searching for the truth. I have questions and would rather “have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned,” paraphrasing Richard Feynman, a quantum physicist and Nobel prize winner who lived here in Los Angeles.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“The world is changed by our example, not by our opinion or a constant stream of rants on social media—that’s my own mantra. Beyond the painfully obvious fact that too many of us are busy counting Facebook likes, just imagine how many of humanity’s problems could be solved if each of us started making small daily decisions based on that innate sense of rightness we humans are wired with.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“The human tendency to focus solely on successful outcomes is well-known in psychology as “survivor bias.”
In entrepreneurship, survivor bias isn’t just present—it’s the name of the game.
You must be overoptimistic.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“As for my own personal awakening, in a “Who is John Galt?” fashion, that happened right in the middle of 2017, when a young fellow asked me if he should raise money through Initial Coin Offerings for his new restaurant, which would offer pizzas and pastas here in Los Angeles.
As he caught sight of the horror in my eyes, he quickly added, “but it will be gluten-free, of course.”
― Victoria Silchenko, No Limits: Modern Poetry For Modern People

“Amazon is not just delivering – it is now moving in with us.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“In all seriousness—what is really happening (and I have plenty of brain-damaging data to prove it) is that finance has become a tool for getting money from productive businesses instead of getting money into them.
If anyone is paying attention to the current stock market, you might reflect on the fact that margin debt is at a record high, and stock market capitalization stands at 176% of U.S. GDP”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“At its very core, choosing the path of an entrepreneur is the most liberating experience, the smartest approach to control our destinies, and an honorable route to serve humankind while making an impact and building wealth with our raw talents and skills.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Here, I must say that some terminology in the language of finance is slightly misleading. Uber’s “loss” largely means heavy investments in other businesses and stock-based compensation stemming from the company's initial public offering.

Unsurprisingly, Travis Kalanick, Uber’s co-founder, sold nearly $1 billion in company shares the moment Uber’s IPO lockup period (read: the timeframe when you can’t sell your shares) was over. Duh.
When a company files for an IPO instead of bankruptcy, the IPO should be renamed a bailout—because modern business solutions require modern business jargon. #sarcasm”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Let me simplify—it means we hardly see reality as it is. Instead, our perception is shaped by our brains—and possibly our hearts too.
Not long ago, I came across a study revealing that the heart is about 60 times stronger than the brain in an electrical field and more than 100 times stronger in a magnetic field.
So, if you ever find yourself wondering whether we’ve all lost our minds, just remember—brains are overrated anyway.
But then, it begs the question—have we lost our connection to heart intelligence too?
Possibly.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“We live in times of an abundance of options, thanks to the Internet, which has turned the world into one big, dazzling marketplace with multinational supply chains. According to one assessment, a simple cup of coffee involves 29 firms across 18 countries.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“If you’re looking for inspiration from Uber’s notorious magic, consider how it took an existing product, used existing technology, and delivered it to existing markets. Yet, its business model remains hard to replicate—and that’s the real magic trick. As the old Silicon Valley saying goes: If you can’t creatively turn $1 into $10, why do you expect to turn $1 million into $10 million?”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“You live in an era where raising funding has turned out to be the most important skill of all.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Let’s face it—in the age of social media, opinions have become commodities, traded at high frequency with no real impact.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Sadly enough, while we all keep segregating ourselves into little tribes, passionately claiming our moral rights and neglected privileges to capital access, we overlook the fact that the real divide comes down to just two sides. Those of us with the desire and mental ability to build and innovate —or, as it's called in finance, the "sell-side." And then there's the "buy-side"—the folks who have some spare capital to invest. How did they get that extra capital in the first place? Good question—fair question.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain

“Today.
We.
Have.
Everything.
You see, we now live in an age where markets—especially those with high purchasing power—are overserved to the point of absurdity.
Let’s start with the fact that we now have over 4 million apps for just about everything—from monitoring your health and tracking your pet’s habits to making harmonica sounds with an iPhone in your mouth or using the chat app Yo—which exists solely to send your friends the word "Yo."
The latter, by the way, managed to raise $1 million in seed funding.”
― Victoria Silchenko, Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain