| This is an interesting perspective. "This article does a good job of confirming this reality, from the initial introduction, to the diligence process. It's unfortunate that capital allocation has turned into a popularity contest." I think you've arrived at the wrong conclusion, allow me to share an anecdote which illustrates why I think that. I came to Silicon Valley in the 80's and went to work for Intel. Intel at the time joked they were the biggest semiconductor company in the world because they were losing money less fast than everyone else. I had a freshly minted EE degree and unlike many of my peers I actually had been building microcomputer systems for 6 years already (I soldered together my own Digital Group Z-80 system in high school). As was their policy at the time, Intel started new college grads (they even had a term NCG) on projects which gave them an opportunity to demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses in a relatively 'safe' way. I was handed the 80186 to deal with but there were other, sexier, projects using the 80286 and 80287 at the time. I thought at the time it was 'unfair' and possibly a 'popularity contest' that other engineers had the opportunity to work on those projects in the spotlight when I was 'forced' to work on what was, even then, a 'loser' CPU. It was later, through a period of some introspection, that I came to realize that it wasn't any of these things, it was simply time. Just like a finance person is loathe to predict a trend based on a small number of data points, or a scientist to come to a conclusion with a small number of samples, engineers and entrepreneurs need 'run time hours' where they have encountered a variety of situations and come away making good and bad decisions and adjusting themselves appropriately. Better test scores, having the 'right' answer now which is validated some time in the future, and being able to reason clearly, are not a substitute for run-time when it comes to evaluating an investment in people. My conclusion was that what I characterized as a 'popularity contest' was actually the 'understanding my strengths/weaknesses' relative to other folks who might do the same job. The people who had a longer track record were 'lower risk' because the decision maker felt more confident in their evaluation. So lets bring that back to the VC community. So some times it looks like the VC community is a 'boys club' or a 'walled garden' where if you don't know the right people or go to the right social events you can't 'break in'. And when you do get the introduction but don't get the investment, and that investment goes to someone who has worked with the VC before, it doesn't feel all that great. And yet, from the VC's perspective something completely different is going on. So a VC or Angel sees your pitch, they pass, but generally they remember that you pitched them something. If the person who did fund it, or if you boot strapped it into existence, and they see that success they get a data point so that the next time they talk to you, rather than being a 'new' thing, you have some run time where they have a data point (your original pitch). So now the discussion can be 'well we passed when you pitched Foobar tell us the story between then and now.' That experience or outcome lets them evaluate your capabilities in a much more objective light. Once you are a 'known' quantity the whole tone of the conversation changes and it becomes relatively easier both to get a meeting and to close a round of funding. "But it's a chicken and egg conundrum!" is a common retort to this. It does seem that way, but its not. Working in a startup (which is easy to do, just apply) gives you visibility to entrepreneurs who got funding, and depending on scale, to the people who funded them. Excelling in that environment will give you a better understanding of what makes startups successful (or not) and can give you insights into what you would do the same, or differently. While there are always stories of people who turn a dorm room project into a big success, the much more common story is someone who works for an established company and invests in understanding how that works, then works for a smaller company to get a grasp of how all of it fits together, and then perhaps co-founds or bootstraps a company to see what they can do when they have more control over the life and death decisions that startups face every month. Now if you want to commiserate that it takes 3, 5, or even 10 years of 'minor league' play before someone will trust you with their money in your own venture. I hear ya. I would love to find ways to reliably evaluate the long term success potential of someone with less historical data. Picking entreprenuers who can execute their visions successfully is at least as hard as picking out ideas which will be successful when executed well. |
First, I suspect you're assuming I'm new to the industry or that I am working on my first startup. In fact, I have done several, had a number of good exits, and am currently building another profitable, growing business in a large market. I am no stranger to building successful businesses, and I've put in my time on the web developer's equivalent to the 80186 project.
Second, my experience is that success in building businesses in no way translates to the kind of popularity or network that venture capitalists look for. Your claim that simply working in a startup gives one visibility to other entrepreneurs and those who funded them is not something I have seen. I have seen tons of contact with vendors, customers, strategic partners, etc, but never venture capitalists. They simply don't move in the same circles that bootstrapped companies move in.
Mind you, none of this is sour grapes. We're doing quite well growing on the basis of our own cash flow. We are happy to have never diluted ourselves and we are happy to have full control over the board and decision-making. But if we ever got to a point where we would like to accelerate our growth with outside capital, there is a no door open to us in the VC community, because we lack access to that network. Bank loans or traditional boutique private equity firms would be the likely targets of our financing efforts.
Anyway, I enjoyed your story of your time at Intel - it's great to see one of the "fathers" of early microprocessors here on HN. Thanks.