Finding your Venture Capital Advisor Mate…

Finding your Venture Capital Advisor Mate…

It always seems that everyone likes to rack up the points with businesspeak, but if you have ever engaged with Venture Capitalists, they tend to score the most. Especially when it comes to the dating analogies, VCs and entrepreneurs love bringing merit to the bedfellow innuendos.

First Date

I know that when I speak with a hot prospect that’s raising venture capital, I get that same flutter as I do when I see a potential suitor. Of course, there is always that blissful feeling of love at first sight after those initial elevator pitches, but once you get to know one another more and more, you realize the flaws. Sometimes after the first date, the parties want to date multiple people through the process or part as just friends.

Show a Little Leg

If the courtship continues, we both show a little more leg to get to know one another by exchanging Pre-LOI data and giving examples of how well we’ve done it and performed before. When sizing each other up, we have to consider if our model or criteria can overcome and compliment any imperfections; the prospect muses if we would offer value beyond just a growth capital investment. We both ask each other: Is the attraction purely physical, is it only personality, or is it the performance?

Getting to know the Friends and Family

Pre-engagement, you meet each others’ friends, parents, and other family members to make sure everything checks out. The VC speaks to the Board members, other investors, and key management while the prospects talk to the portfolio companies.

Engagements & Prenuptials

Most often the parties have dated multiple people, and then it comes time to choose which ring to wear and LOI to sign. In deliberating, the prospect needs to ensure alignment with the company’s exit strategies and other goals as it flirts with the tough questions: who will be more than just growth equity, be faithful, stick with you when you’re sick, and bring the most valuable dowry and letter of intent? Sometimes they want to bring on multiple VCs—but really who wants multiple wives at the table?

Open the Kimono

The fun part… the VC gets down and dirty into the details of the company through the due diligence process.

Wedding Day

The beautiful day –maybe not a white day but a green one… money is wired!

Marriage

The honeymoon period is over, and the real hard work begins. This is the toughest part—through thick or thin, you need a partnership where you are there for one another. It is important to build the trust throughout the courtship and build the foundation for a great marriage.

Divorcing myself from the analogy

The analogy led me on to believe that it works in the other direction. Even though the skills I have learned through VC can assist me in the dating process, when I tell a guy that he is just a lead in the pipeline building stage or that he’s been qualified as an opportunity that I’m trying to close—it never goes over well…I have learned, at least, not to discuss the due diligence process because it always is interpreted as Facebook stalking or other such behavior… Whether the problem is a people or a methodology issue, that’s a discussion for another day … Enough said for now…