Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Chapter 39The Plural of Anecdote Is Not Data

Brad Feld

Brad is a partner at Foundry Group and one of the cofounders of Techstars.

A phrase that is often heard around Techstars is “the plural of anecdote is not data.” While the original attribution of this quote is murky, the meaning is powerful and applies to both mentors and entrepreneurs. Hearing anecdotes about your product or technology—even if you hear multiple anecdotes—is not as valuable as hard data.

Anecdotes are tossed around Techstars by many of the mentors—and for good reason. The mentors are experienced entrepreneurs. They often have started multiple companies—some successful, some not—and they have a wide range of experiences. Through this experience, they’ve developed many stories and built anecdotes from them. These anecdotes are endearing, funny, clever, powerful, and repeated often, but if they are not put in their proper place in the information hierarchy, they can actually derail a young startup.

While there is much for entrepreneurs to learn from storytelling and anecdotes, an inexperienced entrepreneur runs the risk of generalizing anecdotes into truths. During Techstars, entrepreneurs often get conflicting stories and advice from mentors. Mentor A believes that you should go after a specific vertical market as your market entry strategy and then explains how this worked for him in his first company. Mentor B, in a separate conversation, explains how a specific vertical market approach failed her in her ...