Quotes About Startups

Silicon Valley has evolved a critical mass of engineers and venture capitalists and all the support structure - the law firms, the real estate, all that - that are all actually geared toward being accepting of startups.

Many entrepreneurs, and the venture investors who back them, seek to build billion-dollar companies.

When the venture industry started, it was enough to just have money and then it was enough to sort of have this big fuzzy brand. But now startups are getting a lot smarter.

The best talent in the venture industry doesn't work in large companies and won't work in large companies.

The venture community is largely male.

Most startup entrepreneurs unnecessarily spend half their time and give up half their equity in search of funding from angel investors and venture capitalists. Tens of millions of dollars are available to them for free from partners who not only don't want their equity, they don't even want to be paid back.

Given my venture capital background, I know the tech sector well.

There are not many people from top-tier venture capital firms who are focused on the seed stage.

I am a partner at CrunchFund, a venture capital firm with investments in many startups around the world. I am also a limited partner in many other venture funds which have their own startup investments.

When I first started as an angel investor, I was excited to start investing in startups - but I didn't know much. I couldn't tell the good ones from the bad; I didn't understand all these venture capital terms, so I would invest somewhat blindly.

I'm hard-pressed to think of companies that don't need venture capital that are going after big opportunities. I think, in almost all cases, if they're going after big opportunities, they are going to need to raise quite a bit of money.

There's nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. What differentiates them is their disciplined approach to determining when to spend money: after the fundamental elements of the business model have been empirically validated.

I don't think a lot of people have been entrepreneurial about venture capital.

The problem with taking venture capital is if you take $5m from someone, it may feel great; you may feel like they're validating your business model. But they're giving $5m out to 20 different people, hoping one of them will be a hit. They don't really care if it's you.

One can make the case that the New York venture capital industry is rooted in the 21st century, not the 20th.

I like most of the venture capitalists I know; they're smart, well-intended guys who genuinely enjoy helping entrepreneurs succeed. And I love venture capital and investment capital of all categories - its economic impact is proven. The more of it the better.

There's almost too much venture capital in India - there are issues with seed capital, but for venture capital, there's a lot money chasing deals here.

Clearly, there is a gender imbalance when it comes to venture capital and entrepreneurship.

Some of our best-known entrepreneurs started their business ventures when they were kids.

Axilor Ventures helps startups to improve their odds of success, and I look forward to supporting the executive management of Axilor with this vision.

Engineering college students should be encouraged to start entrepreneurial ventures in their second year itself. It is safer to fail while in college.

Not many venture firms have people whose job is to read academic research - on startups, ventures, and entrepreneurs - and gather knowledge from that.

Startups are companies that are still in the process of searching for a business model. Ventures that are further along and executing their business models are no longer startups; they are early-stage companies.

Venture capitalists, with the exception of people like Don Valentine, would tell you that they'd rather fund a great team than a great idea. The reason is that if they have a bad idea, great teams can figure out a better one. Mediocre people even with a great idea can screw it up in its execution. Or if they have a bad idea, then they aren't going to be in a position to think about how to change it. They're just going to pursue it blindly.