I'm walking proof that VC $ turns founders into f***ing idiots.

In 2021, I raised millions to build what I thought would be the next dominant influencer marketing engine. I was backed by top VCs. I had every signal of success—except the right product.

For two years, I ran straight into a wall, blinded by investor expectations, spending patterns that felt “normal,” and the belief that if I just executed harder, the model would work.

It didn’t. And in 2023, with my 31st birthday around the corner, reality hit like a freight train. My career, my reputation—hell, even my dating prospects—EVERYTHING was on the line.

I had two options: Die the "polite" startup death VC expects, or pivot and rebuild from the ground up—this time, on my own terms.

I chose the latter. And it required rewiring my own psychology from scratch.

Venture capital doesn’t just give you money—it hijacks your brain. It triggers dopamine-driven risk-taking, warps your perception of scarcity, and makes you more susceptible to groupthink.

Most founders don’t crash and burn because they’re bad operators. They crash and burn because they lose control over their own psychology.

If you don’t actively fight against these cognitive traps, you’ll spend years making decisions that feel rational…but lead straight to failure.

I know because I lived it.

Here’s how to stay in control.

1. Protect Your Independent Thinking

(Counteract Authority Bias & Groupthink)

The moment you raise money, you inherit a new reality: one shaped by investor expectations, industry trends, and peer pressure.

You start unconsciously defaulting to what “successful” startups do instead of thinking from first principles. You feel compelled to spend to “look the part” because everyone else does. You internalize investor expectations as your own even when they don’t align with building a real business.

I know because I did it.

Instead of thinking about the simplest way to get real traction, I built the company to fit a pre-approved VC narrative. I hired a big team. I spent aggressively. I optimized for “scale” before I even had true product-market fit.

This is authority bias in action—your brain instinctively gives more weight to the opinions of perceived “experts,” even when they’re wrong. Add groupthink (the brain’s tendency to conform to the herd), and you stop thinking independently without even noticing.

How to Hack It:
✅ Try to kill your startup as hard as you’re trying to grow it. If you can’t break it, you’re onto something real.
✅ Always hold space for doubt. If you believe a situation is completely irreparable, you’re setting yourself up for a trap. There are no absolutes. Always hold equal space for doubt.
✅ Build an intellectual backstop. Have a small group outside the VC echo chamber to gut-check major decisions.

2. Impose Artificial Scarcity

(Counteract the Abundance Fallacy)

The human brain is wired for loss aversion. We are far more motivated by the fear of losing something than the excitement of gaining something.

VC funding short-circuits this natural wiring. When you have millions in the bank, your brain loses its natural urgency and discipline.

Founders rationally know that money is finite. But psychologically, a fat bank account makes you subconsciously less aggressive and more tolerant of inefficiency.

I learned this the hard way.

I had too much capital too soon. My default answer to every problem was hire more people. Spend more. Expand the team. None of it solved the real problem.

How to Hack It:
✅ Create fake scarcity. If you raised $10M, mentally cap yourself at $2M. Your brain will solve problems more efficiently if it believes resources are scarce.
✅ Give every dollar a job. Don’t just “have money in the bank.” Lock it into pre-decided budget buckets and act like anything unallocated doesn’t exist.
✅ Optimize for survival, not comfort. The longer you operate under constraints, the better decisions you make.

3. Avoid the Micro-Dosing Trap

(Counteract the Sunk Cost Fallacy)

The deadliest spending habit isn’t burning cash all at once. It’s gradually increasing spending in ways that feel justifiable.

The first $10K test feels fine. Then it’s another $5K. Then it’s a “tiny” $120K hire. Then it’s another experiment.

It doesn’t feel reckless. But your brain doesn’t register small losses as real losses. The sunk cost fallacy kicks in. Once you’ve spent money on something, your brain feels invested and keeps you spending to justify the original decision.

I spent three years doing this.

I didn’t burn cash irresponsibly. But I dripped it into things that should have been killed immediately instead of slowly tapering off.

How to Hack It:
✅ Force binary decisions. Either commit to something big enough to matter, or don’t do it at all.
✅ Use the “pre-mortem” method. Before any expense, ask: “If I spend this money and it doesn’t work, what would I wish I had done instead?”
✅ Ruthlessly cut losses. If something isn’t working, kill it. Do not “optimize” your way out of a bad idea.

4. Stay in Survival Mode

(Counteract the Dopamine Trap)

Funding triggers a dopamine rush. You feel like you’ve made it. You feel like you’re playing with house money.

This destroys your edge.

Your brain is sharpest when it believes survival is at stake. Once that pressure disappears, you start making slower decisions, tolerating inefficiencies, and assuming “we can always raise more.”

VC-backed companies die because they stop feeling the urgency to survive.

How to Hack It:
✅ Live like you have six months left. Even if you have years of runway, keep the psychological pressure on.
✅ Set do-or-die deadlines. Nothing lights a fire under execution like knowing something has to work within X weeks, or it’s dead.
✅ Take money off the table early. Founders make better decisions when their personal survival isn’t tied to company survival. If possible, secure personal financial safety so you can operate rationally.

VC Doesn’t Kill Startups. Psychological Decay Does.

The best founders aren’t just good operators. They’re masters at managing their own psychology.

If you let VC money rewire your brain, you will make the same mistakes every overfunded founder makes. You won’t even realize it’s happening.

The solution isn’t just being disciplined. It’s playing against your own psychology—setting up constraints, fighting cognitive biases, and maintaining the sharpness that got you here in the first place.

Most founders don’t lose because they’re dumb. They lose because they get soft.

In 2024, I pivoted my company to fix the compliance disaster I had spent three years creating. I went from accidentally industrializing influencer fraud to building the compliance layer influencer marketing couldn’t survive without.

You can ignore this, or you can survive. Your choice.

And make no mistake:

So long as “Founder” is in my title, I’ll be in survival mode too.

Kaeya