What should be a venture capitalist?

Recently, another article was published on how to make presentations for venture capitalists. And something I didn’t like about it right away, something about her was wrong. It would seem an article, like an article, many of our writers and Western rich people write to “facilitate” access to investments ... but ...



In short: Meta-communication ... diverges with the purpose of utterance.

Maybe I don’t understand something, but it always seemed to me that the venture capitalist WANTED to simply invest in startups and then get back their already increased funds. The goal of these people is trivial, and fully correlates with the goals of most people on the planet: to do nothing, and to have all the blessings of the world for this. It is clear that they have money, and they somehow earned it. It’s clear that they are at risk ...

Nevertheless, one should not forget who multiplies their capital. Do not forget that we, startups, are helping these people a lot more. And in general, since there is such a thing in nature as venture capital investments, it means they are beneficial to BOTH parties. Amen.

Back to the article, it is about how we make life easier for businessmen. (And why, in fact, do they need to make life easier? =) The target audience of the article is startups who want to get paid funding. That is, according to the author’s idea, the article should help startups in terms of building a presentation ... But what do we see ...

We see that Mr. Feld focuses on his sky-high coolness. He tells us how he does not respond to mass mailings (it seemed to me that a real project should always have an investor “in reserve”, so why spend weeks searching for real names of clerks of all investment funds?); how he does not respond to letters, if in his name, God forbid, a mistake was made; how can he “get furious” if the poor startup (in the future, very rich, but now shaking his knees) finally found what to say at the end of the meeting.

In a meta-message, Brad hints to us that he has already earned his money, and is ready to give up superprofits if the startup does not make all curtsies in order to receive investments from him. And since there is little money, Mr. Capital wants to continue investing with one hand. He comes up with our own rules for us, some kind of ritual dances with a tambourine, which are necessary for obtaining financing. You haven’t received anything from him yet, but you should already be walking, scratching your knees. Imagine what will happen when he does give us money ?!

Essentially, this is just another managerial insanity, when a person, due to his coolness, falls out of the context of reality, forgets what he really needs to do at work. Recall the story of Richard Branson, who went barefoot to the bank for a loan; about the guys from google who promised options to the granny, who rented a garage (she refused). And how Yahoo refused to buy them the engine.

In my opinion, lazy investors, narrowing the number of startups under consideration by their rules, will sit with their millions, going to zero on deposits and government bonds. So let dear Brad, wearing his white shirt every morning, remember these success stories, and with new vigor he will realize with whom and how he needs to work today.

Or am I wrong? ;-)

PS: I could not post it to startups, there is not enough karma ...