Chanced upon this great post by Matt Blumberg on “10 Characteristics of Great Investors“.
Should be read by ALL investors, I think.
I am listing my favourite five of the ten characteristics below:
- Great investors know how to give strategic advice without being in the operating weeds of a company
- Great investors get to know whole management teams, not just CEOs
- Great investors invite you to do diligence on them by giving you a list of every CEO they’ve ever worked with and asking you to pick the ones you want to talk to
- Great investors ask great questions
- Great investors don’t publicly take credit for the success of their investments, even if they were major drivers of that success
Thanks Matt.
September 5th, 2009
Posted by
Shantanu |
FAQs for Entrepreneurs, Venture Capital, What VCs really do |
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I was here…talking to a bunch of bright people and listening to some great ideas…
Could anything have been more exciting?!
.
February 19th, 2009
Posted by
Shantanu |
Entrepreneurship, FAQs for Entrepreneurs, India, My Presentations, Venture Capital, What VCs really do |
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I was going to check out The Funded* today but discovered that Jason has beaten me to it!
The site does not have many European funds but does briefly mention London Seed Capital, Atlas and Index - sadly nothing on Amadeus.
I have nothing to add to what Jason has written except to re-emphasise the following (this is for entrepreneurs and start-ups):
If you’ve dealt with (and preferably received funds from) a VC, I would recommend you post your experience on The Funded.
As for me, I will try and see if we can get a nice entry for Amadeus 
.
P.S. Thanks to Barak for a great title and to Loken for the link (in response to my earlier post)
May 8th, 2007
Posted by
Shantanu |
FAQs for Entrepreneurs, Venture Capital, Venture Capital in Europe, What VCs really do |
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Ben Holmes of Index Ventures recently gave a presentation at the FOWA Conference in London which builds a neat story around “Everything you need to know about Venture Capital“…
The slides are up on slideshare - worth viewing.
Saul Klein and Fred Destin have also blogged about this.
February 26th, 2007
Posted by
Shantanu |
Entrepreneurship, FAQs for Entrepreneurs, Venture Capital, What VCs really do |
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In my continuing series of FAQs for Entrepreneurs, I came across this gem…fellow blogger Ventureblogalist’s wiki titiled VC101 with some great links on various VC and Entrepreneurship related topics here (Hat Tip: Max)
Two of my favourites:
“Microsoft will acquire my company” and “VC Primer from an Entrepreneurs’s POV“
On sandhill.com James Quist has a nice story with some guidelines on bootstrapping and raising capital. As he says:
“During our journey, we identified three important guidelines for successfully bootstrapping a company.
Guideline #1: Before starting a business and taking capital, validate your products with real customer pain
Guideline #2: Bootstrap for the right reasons, raise capital for the right reasons
Guideline #3: When you decide to raise capital, find good partners to help grow your business major shareholder.”
Another nice one: A basic (and simply explained) introduction to venture capital by Tom Smith, Partner at Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds…and finally, Rodi Guidero of VantagePoint has a nice list of FAQs on Sfgate.com’s site:
Meanwhile, Rhiannon Evans, who runs TiE’s Mentoring programme has very kindly linked this category on the TiE Members Page…Thanks Rhiannon…
Comments welcome, as always (especially from any entrepreneurs out there).
January 25th, 2007
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Shantanu |
Entrepreneurship, FAQs for Entrepreneurs, What VCs really do |
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I promised earlier this month to highlight some of the most common questions that entrepreneurs have about venture capital financings and related topics…and I hope some of you managed to read Max’s thoughts on “how much equity should you give up?” which I used to begin my series.
A few days ago, I came across Krishna Mony’s excellent blog and found this post on his site: “How much to hold back?”
Its a neat and well-written expplanation of the basic maths behind how much equity could founders expect to have at the end of the day? Over to Krishna:
“Most of the startup entrepreneurs have this persistent question on valuation. Let me now direct them to read this before they have my hair for splits. From now on, I would look forward to something more intelligent from them so that it tests my skills at a significantly higher level calling for some sophisticated financial modelling.
“So how much should I expect to own at the end of the day? ” is that question.
It all depends on how capital efficient you are. If you need to raise $5M followed by $15M followed by $20M, there is not much pie left at the end of the day.
Let’s see what that looks like:
Seed/early : $ 5M at a $5M pre-money leaves you with 50%
Expansion : $ 15M at a $15M pre-money leaves you with 25%
Later stage : $ 20M at a $40M pre-money leaves you with about 16%
Back out 8-10% for equity to other managers, warrants, founders, etc and you have 6-8% left over.
Unfortunately, too many entrepreneurs don’t think this through completely and are extremely resentful or disappointed at the end. Furthermore, if things don’t go as planned the money could come in at much lower valuations or you might need to raise more rounds.
In a capital efficient play, you end up with a much greater share. For example:
Seed/early : $1M at a $3M pre-$ leaves you with 75%.
Expansion : $3M at a $12M pre-$ leaves you with 62%.
Later stage : $3M at a $27M pre-$ leaves you with 56%
Back out 8-10% and you have over 45% still in your possession. You’ll notice that I even used lower pre-$’s in this second example and it still came out significantly ahead (nearly 7x).
December 23rd, 2006
Posted by
Shantanu |
Entrepreneurship, FAQs for Entrepreneurs, Venture Capital |
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