My son Zack is shopping for a used car. Like most 17 year olds, his budget is tight, and his expectations are large. We found a very nice Toyota, equal parts dad-friendly (well maintained, basic low-powered sedan, inexpensive maintenance) and teen friendly (cool rims, great stereo, nice paint job). The problem? When we looked up the value, we found the young lady selling it wanted about 30% more than it was worth.
We offered her closer to the value of the car, and her response was that she was trying to buy another car that cost more, so she needed to sell this one for the high price in order to have the money for the other car. She'd also recently put a lot of money into the new rims and paint (more than the actual value of the whole car!), and she wants to recoup that investment.
Zack and I had a nice talk afterward about value and sunk costs. She needs a certain amount of money to support her lifestyle, but the car isn't worth that to anyone else. She'd spent lots of money that didn't increase the car valuation, but couldn't write that off.
I regularly talk to would-be founders that have the same problem. They're looking for funding, based not on what the company is worth, but what they think they need. I ask what they're intending to use the money for, and founder salaries make up the bulk, often to the tune of six figures per founder. This is most common among older founders that are leaving established careers and want their startup to replace their salary, benefits, and bonus. Or they've already spent a lot of time and money, and want the investment to pay them back for that.
It's not my problem that the young lady wants a more expensive car and certainly not my job to fund it for her. If you're a founder, you can't expect to leave your no-risk corporate job and have an investor shoulder all the risk either. Likewise, the time and money you've put into the business isn't going to affect the investment, unless those have increased the value of the business.
You may think you're worth the money, but don't expect an investor to fund your lifestyle.
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