I had two people at VC in the Rockies this week say that VC’s were rockstars. I hope that’s not really what most VCs actually think. I always thought of entrepreneurs as rockstars. We’re just the groupies.
Posts By / seth levine
Venture Capital at Altitude
Every year the Colorado Venture Capital Association (soon to morph into the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association after combining with similar associations in a few neighboring states) puts on the “it” conference for Colorado venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and the lawyers, bankers, search firms, etc. that support us – Venture Capital in the Rockies. I love this event – it’s a great chance to see the best of Colorado deal flow and it concentrates pretty much everyone in the region who has anything to do with venture in one place for the better part of two days with plenty of opportunities to connect, catch up, share ideas, gossip, etc (oh – and did I mention that the conference is in Beaver…
Delivering bad news
Let’s say you have some bad news to deliver to your board/investors. For example, you lost a huge customer or your software has a major bug that’s going to set you back 6 months or your CFO just got arrested for cheating on his taxes, etc. Should you: Take out an advertisement in the Journal announcing this and then send out a note to your board with a link Rent one of those sign trucks and have it drive by your investors offices repeatedly Bury it deep inside a board book and hope no one notices it Don’t say anything – your investors/board are too involved in your business already and ask way too many questions as it is None…
Clarity
I was on a call recently where I had to ask someone 4 times to repeat what they were saying using more exact terms. It’s a major pet peeve of mine and so prevalent I’m losing my ability to be nice about it. Perhaps it’s a result of being a kinder, gentler society or maybe it’s just because we’ve all sat through too many PowerPoint presentations or maybe we’re all testing our political-speak skills, but whatever it is the result is the absolutely maddening trend of people not saying directly what they mean and forcing the rest of us to play 20 questions to tease it out of them. Here’s an example: Direct description: This is a red circle “Business”…
When you know it’s not right, it isn’t
When you know it’s not right, it isn’t. A fellow board member said this to me the other day and I wrote it down as something I wanted to remind myself of every once in a while. She was referring to the human tendency to act slowly in the face of clear evidence and in particular to venture capitalists’ reluctance to be decisive. A good thought to ponder.
Children
I suppose this is a pretty obvious statement, but children really need (and deserve) homes. This hits close to the heart when you visit an orphanage and are immediately surrounded by kids yelling “mommy? mommy? mommy?” as they look up at you with their arms raised so you can pick them up. I wish I could find a way to explain in words what it’s like to step out of a van into a sea of smiling children, all with their arms outstretched. Obviously my wife and I are inclined towards children, as we were there to adopt our daughter, but I think it would be hard for anyone to experience this and not want to leave with every child…
Who do I work for?
In a recent post I pointed out how autonomous the venture business can be. If that’s the case, then, who do I work for? Brad hired me and I spent several years working directly for him (i.e., supporting him in his investments). He’s still my boss, although we don’t have a traditional reporting relationship (I’m a junior partner – a Principal in our nomenclature – and he’s a senior partner – a Managing Director). I use him as a sounding board and advisor a lot but we don’t really have much of a boss/employee relationship. To some extent I work ‘for’ the other Managing Directors of Mobius but more in the same way someone at a company works ‘for’ their…
Why are VCs so indecisive?
Ever notice how indecisive many VCs are? Maybe I’m just quick tempered, but it bugs the hell out of me that so many of my venture colleagues can’t seem to make a decision. Sometimes this shows up in overanalyzing a prospective investment (just to turn it down later for a completely unrelated reason which came up in the first week of their diligence); sometimes in the line “we’re waiting to see if any other investor is interested in this deal before deciding to pursue it”; sometimes in a delay taking an action with a CEO when its clear something needs to be done; sometimes in simply not having a definitive opinion on any issue – ever – until someone else…
Any Ethiopian readers?
Random question, but I have received e-mails from readers across the word. I’m going to be in Addis Ababa later this week and was wondering if I had any readers there. You can e-mail me here
The kindness of strangers
The world is full of people who have gone out of their way to be helpful to me over the years. I’ve been reminded of how powerful kindness can be in the past few weeks as a relative stranger – a ‘friend of a friend’ who I’ve actually never met in person, just over e-mail and phone – has gone out of their way to help me out and as a result is making something extremely important to me much easier. This truly is what makes the world go around.