Been spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about success factors in business.
In particular the venture business and in early stage technology startups. This is the time
of year when our partnership goes out to our investors with fund updates (yes, venture
capitalist have to answer to investors as well!). Brad Feld has an interesting post/thread
on the subject of venture capitalist performance. But you arent reading this to hear
about me, I am sure you would rather hear about how VCs (I can only speak for myself
actually) think about entrepreneural success.
My job as a VC is actually pretty simple. For any given venture, optimize success f
actors and minimize downside risk factors. We tend to take larger risks than public market
investors due to the stage of investments, basically early stage and less baked (hopefully more
than half baked). Successful VCs have proven their ability to manage the levers of start-up
