Bijan Sabet

People Meeting Business

I am a venture capitalist. I do my best to invest in the best people pursuing their best ideas.

As a result I’m in the people meeting business. I try to meet as many great people as possible and as often as possible. It could be online, on this blog, in my office, in your office, 3k miles away or in the park. The location doesn’t matter much.

I encourage entrepreneurs in our portfolio or outside our portfolio to also be in the people meeting business.

I am often surprised when I meet a founder that says he doesn’t like the VC on his board and he never took the time to get to know this investor beforehand.

Fund raising can be exhausting and a distraction even under the best conditions. But it’s critical to take the time and make sure it’s a good match. That’s true if you are a VC or a founder.

Consider that it could take weeks or months to find that killer vp marketing or engineering. Why shouldn’t it take that long to find the right investment partner.

The best way to get to know people is to meet them early and often (im talking about the ones that are the most interesting or helpful or provacative etc).

That way when it’s time to raise that round you will already have much more data to balance out your gut or basing the big decision solely on the firms reputation.

(excuse any typos. Wrote this post quickly on my iPhone at the airport)