Recently I was given the opportunity to invest in a friends new company
I have become quite fond of this entrepreneur. He’s passionate, interesting, curious and he’s a good guy. I also consider him a friend of mine as well.
I wanted to make this investment and work with him. I did a bunch of work on it, talked to other smart folks in the area but in the end I decided not to do it.
I have a strong feeling that he’s going to solve a bunch of problems and probably will end up making something quite special. While I really like him, I just wasn’t excited about the specific thing he’s going to build.
I know other venture capitalists (that have excellent track records) that are able to divorce themselves from the particular subject matter. They just think about the team and try to answer the question if the idea could be big one day.
Startups are not for the faint of heart. Whether you are an early stage investor or entrepreneur. They can be fun, scary, stressful and amazing. And sometimes that all happens all in just one week :) But one thing I’ve learned is that I need to be super interested in the idea personally or it just doesn’t work for me.
It wasn’t an easy decision for me – but it was the right one.