Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Venture Capitalists And Their Thesis

Hacking Venture Capital, Fred Destin, Mini See...Image by paulamarttila via FlickrYou can waste time as an entrepreneur knocking the doors of the wrong venture capitalists. VCs tend to have sectors they are knowledgeable about and are interested in. If you are not a fit, you are not a fit. You might have a brilliant idea, a brilliant team, a brilliant product, but if you approached the wrong VC, you will still get a no.

Venture Capital Investment Thesis Myths For venture capitalists, an investment thesis states the main idea of their fund–essentially, why your venture fund exists, and what it proposes to invest in ..... does the company mesh well with our macro-economic analysis? Are they operating in a market we understand? What are the future expectations of the sector? .... many venture capital firms don’t have investment theses. Those firms also tend to not last. .... Like writing a presentation/business plan/executive summary, there’s no set procedure for creating an investment thesis. ..... investment theses only last a couple years ... investment thesis will most likely be constantly tinkered with

Venture Capital: Hindsight Does Not Equal Foresight Limited Partners in Venture have overwhelmingly invested in a thesis that does not list a critical path, but merely state a desire to end up on a beach. ..... insufficient investment discipline.

Mark Peter Davis: My Current Investment Thesis I have decided that it’s time for me to get on the bandwagon and summarize my current investment philosophy. ..... I expect my philosophy to evolve

Dave McClure's Investment Thesis (avc.com) PRODUCT now typically means a website or service, run on low-/no-cost open source software, hosted in the cloud on low-cost servers, developed in a few months (or a WEEKEND!) by a small team of 1-5 developers, who continuously test & iterate in real-time with online customers ......... MARKETing now typically means using a variety of online distribution channels via paid & organic search (SEM/SEO) on Google, viral/social amplification on new media platforms & social networks like Facebook, Twitter, & YouTube, and the quickly-growing mobile platforms of Apple iPhone & Google Android. With the exception of search, most of these distribution channels didn't exist 5 years ago, yet they now easily reach over 100M-500M+ users, with very low cost and measurable marketing campaigns such that even a small team can reach billions of people globally. ........ REVENUE can now be collected easily via a variety of online payment, transactional e-commerce, digital goods, subscription billing, lead generation, CPM/CPC/CPA advertising. Many people buy things online now, and many companies are even bought for usage & users ahead of revenue.

Mark Peter Davis: Understanding A VC's Thesis how an entrepreneur can understand a VC's thesis before a first meeting ..... you should only reach out to VCs for which your business is a potential fit, you should be careful not to eliminate VCs that are a near fit before you have reached out to them. .... some parameters about preferred investment size, sector and geography

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