Month: January 2011

Much has been written about the VC process over the years. The best VC and founder blogs have a done an amazing job at shedding some light and advice on a process that had previously been mysterious and confusing. 

Some of the important ways to prepare are to choose your VC targets wisely, do they have the same style as you do, do they share your vision, check references, and be clear about your objectives in the meeting. Partnering with a VC is a big one and should not be considered lightly. 

Yesterday, Mark Suster shared his thoughts about how to best prepare for the actual meeting itself. Mark describes a number of things in his post including who should be in the room, who should do the talking and an outline for your powerpoint deck.

I like Mark a lot, he has a terrific blog and I usually agree with much of his advice.

His post nails a number of important things like: what is a VC looking for? 

Above all – the quality & potential of the team

Exactly.

But there are a couple things in this particular post that don’t work for me personally (every VC is different!).

First, if it’s an early stage company, I don’t need to see a powerpoint deck. I’m comfortable with introductions and then getting into the demo. Or if the demo isn’t ready, then follow Bryce’s wonderful suggestion about hitting the whiteboard. As Bryce’s points out.

When an entrepreneur steps to the whiteboard the energy in the room totally changes. There’s movement, there’s action, there’s something happening that requires attention. The conversation moves from consuming images on a screen in lean back mode, to active engagement. Half baked ideas get refined, new ideas emerge and a two way dialoge develops where a one way monologue once was.

So true.

Two other things I’ll call out from Marks post: marketing size and exit strategy.

When I think about all of the countless presentations I’ve been through, the market size slides never do it for me with early stage companies. Those slides are always way over the top or they don’t communicate the idea that the startup is trying to create a brand new market that doesn’t exist or taking on a market that is fucked up and needs to be fixed or changed. 

I would rather hear from the founder why they are passionate about the thing they are building vs taking some percentage of a contrived market size slide. 

And when it comes to exit strategy…..well, let me just say, I don’t care much for that slide at all. If you meet with me, please leave it out. 

Last year, Andrew Parker joined our firm as a Senior Associate. 

We had the opportunity to work with Andrew for several years before he moved to Boston when he was working with our friends at Union Square Ventures. It felt like an obvious fit on a professional and personal level. 

Andrew hit the ground running and has quickly established himself as an important part of our team. 

So today, I’m delighted to announce that we recently promoted Andrew to Principal at Spark Capital. Andrew will continue to be a big part of the investment team and will expand his current responsibilities to leading investments and also serving on boards. 

Please join me in congratulating Andrew. 

Many people suffer from a fear of failure.

I know people that use this fear as a way to avoid risks. They won’t take a job at an early stage startup. Or they will sell a company early because they are afraid of looking and feeling bad if it ultimately doesn’t turn out well. 

There are countless examples of letting this fear get the better of you. 

And I know other folks that use this fear as a motivator for striving to be the best. They try to conquer their fears on a daily basis by paying more attention to their will to create something awesome. 

The folks in the latter category have my respect.  They are human and they are winning. 

In startup land, most early stage companies don’t work out and they fall short of the early founders and early VCs expectation. Big risk and big reward. 

Often times the journey itself is the reward. That’s what led me to startups in the first place. I never thought or obsessed about how much my WebTV options would be worth one day. i was more obsessed about whether we could a difference. 

The one thing i notice with some VCs and some hiring execs is their sometimes lack of appreciation of failure. Especially when the VC and startup ecosystem requires a huge amount of failure.  I look at it differently and wonder about people that have never failed. 

Instead of dismissing a candidate with, “he/she must not be very good, that company was a failure”, I think it’s much more helpful to pay attention to what that person actually accomplished and attempted to accomplish. 

And many times, giving people a second chance or even a third chance can create amazing results. 

It can be a challenge but I encourage all of us to be proud of our failures and take the time to learn some valuable lessons.