-
Website
http://bothsidesofthetable.com/ -
Original page
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/06/19/getting-access-to-the-old-boys-club-how-to-approach-a-vc/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
But more to the point, I am constantly meeting entrepreneurs and angels or others with capital. My angel contacts know I won't send them trash. My entrepreneur contacts want to gravitate to those who can not only provide legal services, but also make referrals to other quality service providers, including angels and capital matchmakers.
you nailed it. I think this is fantastic advice for folks trying to figure out how to meet VCs. I think you next follow up post should be on tips on how to pitch VCs.
jas
Saw this link out on Twitter. Very good information and very appreciated by an entrepreneur such as myself, who isn't too the VC stage yet but want to be ready when we are. Will also be sending this link to the rest of my team.
David
Founder/CEO
Virtuosant Technology
What about all those folks that aren't anybody yet?
People who are smart, educated but with no connections, no work experience in the right areas and just really no possibility of simply calling anybody up (seriously who the hell as a young entrepreneur knows any corporate lawyers for heaven's sake - most entrepreneurs are young people with great minds, ideas and no money working out of their shitty apartments...how the hell would they know anybody corporate?)but still have great ideas that are just ripe to be invested in?
Seriously, if VCs are so interested in finding great entrepreneurs and investing and most importantly making shit loads of money from these entrepreneurs don't you think they could spend some money on hiring someone to actually look at their in-boxes??? Seriously, this is a two way street and many, many entrepreneurs are excellent at what they do but do not have the time nor the connections to be mingling and networking since they are actually working on their business ideas, usually with no funds and no backing.
A realistic approach from VC¨s seriously interested in finding great, innovative ideas, and not simply investing in friends and friends of friends, could be to be open to maybe, just maybe, opening up to the fact that everyone is not like you and that the good ideas could possibly come from the outside. Maybe it is about time you stop acting like stuck up prigs and realize what being a venture capitalist is all about....the operative word being venture and not going the same boy's club route with the same old peeps...
Mark, I once applied game theory to the VC business. You know how it goes: "I will invest in an A team with a C idea vs. a C team with and A idea" and so on.
For true innovation, such as the invention of the airplane, TV, etc. The result was to always go with the "A idea C team" scenario.
For derrivate and me too businesses (such as investing in dog socializing network where others already exist)the (A team, C idea (or no idea!) works ok. Of course, in the last 10 years, the VC graveyard is littered with "A teams" that lost billions on "C"ideas and mee too ideas.
"A" ideas are not easy to spot and often are not intuitive. But if you can find them, even it the come with an innovator that has bad breath and is terrible at public speaking, can't see snow to an eskimo, etc, game theory says go with him anyway.
Why? You can always dress him up, brush his teeth, give hom speaking leassons, etc. An innovative idea is much harder to come by and its very hard to make a great idea out of a "C" idea.
I don't agree. How good of a saleman/entrepreneur can you possibly be if you can't just pick up the phone and call somebody and make the pitch. You can get the VC's email and/or phone, just do the work.
You should be respected for finding the right person to call. Expecting someone else to do your job is never a good idea.
The best way to find growth capital is to apply to a venture summit where you can speed pitch your ideas to several investors face-to-face in a single day. One such example is The Speed Venture Summit, the premier speed-dating-style event for fast-growth businesses and investors in New England. http://www.speedventuresummit.org; and follow the virtual discussion at Twitter #SVSNE
If you are unhappy that this article doesn't bring anything new than it's probably that there is hardly anything more to know about the subject. If everybody write similar things from their experience than this is basically all you need to know. There might be some other details than change and very - and are basically not so important and there is no point in writing about them.
The problem of many inteligent people is that they would like to be entrepreneurs and although they might be good with math, they are not entrepreneurs. Sorry to say so, but no matter if you are young or old and you don't know any investors, lawyers, VCsts etc than the question you ask is wrong - you wonder what should they do if they don't know anyone. Well, the first step would be to actually get to know "right" people :) How? Well, they are supposedly inteligent, right? So they should find a way...
And in case you wonder - venture capital is interested in "proper" ventures. A proper venture is such that not only the business idea is good, but also the people are right to do it. People who don't know right people to get financing are basically wrong to do business - no matter what their IQ is and how good an idea they have. Obviously, they not only do not know people to handle financing, but also others aspects of business. If they had a bunch of marketers, lawyers, PR-specialists, IT guys etc than they would find their way to VC
This is why VC make themselves available to entrepreneurs and the real ones will get them. Definitely, they won't look for smart asses to force them their financing or someone who can't even make it to finding their way to talk to VC
is it true that law firms will work pro bono to help young entrepaneurs sort out the legal stuff prior to receiving funding? I want to make sure I can keep control of my company before I make my entrance into the world of angel/VC capital. Do you know of any such lawyers in West Los Angeles?
Thanks,
@BrendanBiryla
I'm very confident in our "fundability". That said, my team and I are taking all necessary steps to perfect our product before we seek funding and legal council.
Will keep you posted.
All the best,
@BrendanBiryla
Thank you..