Venture Capital 101: Know What You Want to Become

Filed in archive VC and PE: education and training on October 19, 2007

You know that venture capital is data driven and time consuming. We've told you how expensive it can be but that it can be a big asset with the right partner.

We have one final note for you as part of this series: as Amar Goel points out in his blog, venture capital works best when you know what you want your company look like at the end of the VC process.




Mike Myatt has a nice little piece online about the difference between having a mission and having a vision. Your vision is a picture of what you want your company to look like and what you want it to be doing in three to seven years.

If your vision is small - if five years down the road your grand hope is to be the biggest retailer of type-q widgets in all of Terre Haute, Indiana (or to corner the market on those widgets in Harbin, in Heilongjiang Province) - getting venture capital funding is going to be nearly impossible.

On the other hand, if you see yourself in a few year running a company that has national brand recognition, a minimum revenue stream of $20 million or so, and is about to go public, then venture capital is a far more reasonable alternative.

Amar spells out some of the details pretty clearly. Take a look at his post.