So, I’ve met venture capitalists before in informal settings, but I’ve never met them in the business setting. I recently had the opportunity to do so and this guy was fabulous- one of the coolest venture capitalists I had ever met (t-shirt, shorts, wild hair, energy galore). Although I read a bunch of books about it and read blogs on the subject, I thought I needed to actually hear it from a real-life VC. I asked my VC uncle (the middle-stage, Chinese non-new media firm) about what I should do and here’s what he wrote back: I’m not sure there are areas to necessarily avoid. The main thing is simple: describe clearly what your company is doing and what it plans to do. And, be aware that what every VC wants is a growing company in a hot sector. So, you really want to get across two things: Company growth: Be sure you have clear what you want from the VC: i.e, how much money. They might ask at what valuation–you don’t have to say but can answer the market will determine. If you need funds fast, say you are flexible to negotiate a win-win… Good luck! That’s it. Straight from an actual managing director of a venture capital firm (he’s a decision maker). Of course, Get Venture, Venture Hacks, Guy Kawasaki, and everyone else has everything mapped out to the nth degree, but I think my uncle writes the basic gist. Other Notes: They do not care about how young you are. Nevertheless, they care that you can execute. This VC told us that our youth was an advantage because we kind of knew what our generation wanted.
One last thing to add is to make sure you’re likeable. “Even if you have a great technology, I need to like you.” Goes to show you the litmus test for teams- do something well and be well liked.