Quotes About VCs

In an increasingly competitive technology world, VCs must work more and more closely with portfolio companies to develop superior technology, talent, and operations.

We worked personally with a lot of great VCs. They just work incredibly hard at supporting entrepreneurs and their companies.

Livingston: Didn't you also insult them by describing publicly what it was like to have VCs run your company? Greenspun: Only after they sued me. I said it was like watching a kindergarten class get into a Boeing 747 and flip all the switches and try to figure out why it won't take off. That was before I got my pilot's license. Now I know how apt it was.

The bad news is that most traditional VCs have a youth bias that they will state very overtly. You always wonder if that's a self-fulfilling prophecy or if it's something about the nature of those businesses.

When I participate in a Series A deal with VCs, entrepreneur-friendly terms go out the window. VCs remain attached to age-old traditional industry terms. 'Ratchet,' 'carry,' 'vetoes' - you name it.

Often, entrepreneurs don't build a board until they are forced to by their VCs when they raise their first financing round. This is dumb, as you are missing the opportunity to add at least one person to the team who - as a board member - can help you navigate the early process of building your company and raising that first round.

I'm not bothered when other VCs start hiring great designers or start recruiting. That's the direction I'd like it to go.

VCs invest in innovation and disruption, but how often do they innovate themselves?

One thing that has made us so successful is that we've never taken outside investment. That means we can concentrate on what our customers want - not what the stockholders or the VCs want.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is not understanding the relationship they have with their investors. At times, they confuse VCs with their friends.

Understand that VCs are simply a sophisticated form of financial investors who, in turn, need to satisfy their own investors.

Twitter has always been that refreshing place where I can quickly find out what is going on in my tech world. I follow mostly entrepreneurs and VCs - some who I know and some who I don't know. I have a few companies in my feed. But no newspapers, no magazines, and no mainstream media.

VCs are used to being the gatekeepers of capital. There's this old narrative of entrepreneurs going hat in hand begging VCs for money. That absolutely is not the world we're in anymore.

games like Taito's Space Invaders were not designed with the peculiarities of the Atari VCS in mind. Sprites were different in many post-1977 arcade games. Most important, there were often more than two per screen! When faced with the rows of aliens in Space Invaders or the platoon of ghosts that chases Pac-Man, VCS programmers needed to discover and use methods of drawing more than two sprites, even though only two one-byte registers were available.

By the early 1980s, VCS development was still largely the same, although some changes were brewing. At Atari and Imagic, the first artist-programmer teams were created, allowing artists to focus on sprite and screen visuals.

VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup.

You need to begin to network with angels and VCs while you are still ideating. It is easier to ask someone you know for funding than a stranger. Build your financial network by attending as many industry functions and reaching out for advice from experts online.

Inasmuch as there is a useful purpose to what we do as VCs, I tend to think it's our duty not only to mentor entrepreneurs and executive teams, but also to learn from them and the others involved. We can then pass on lessons to aid the startup ecosystem and help businesses succeed and grow their impact.

If you look at where the tried and true of Silicon Valley VC's are investing, it's in people who understand what it takes, who've been through it and have a network of people they can tap and resources to pull together.

If you start a startup, don't design your product to please VCs or potential acquirers. Design your product to please the users. If you win the users, everything else will follow.

Kauffman Fellows is not necessarily for people just entering the venture industry but for experienced VCs looking to accelerate their growth. The program is centered around established innovation leaders - if you are looking to grow and become a better investor, you should think about doing this program.

If your business had no risk, you could go get a bank loan and call it a day. VCs like risks - without them, venture capital wouldn't exist. But they need to be risks that VCs are good at assessing and managing.