Venture Capital

You Have to Shoot to Score Fred’s recent post called From Messes to Successes left me thinking about the reasons why successful companies often have rough patches along the road to their ultimate success — the times Fred refers to when he says “they’re a mess.”   First, his premise is right.  Good companies are often a mess.  Probably more than most outside Board members (even good VC ones) even realize!  And while his explanation as to why this occurs, which is that the company focuses exclusively on the product to the exclusion of infrastructure, scaling, and planning issues, may be right some of the time, let me offer an alternative explanation. I always tell people internally that You Have to…

VCs Are Full of It …at least that’s what Brad says.  Well, he says a lot more than that, but certainly makes for a good pre-holiday headline, doesn’t it? Brad’s brilliant advice is not to confuse data – or even worse – anecdotes – with fact.  I’d add to the axiom my own observation that “just because someone says something with extreme conviction doesn’t mean it’s true.” His whole post is very worthwhile – one of the best ones I’ve read in a long time.  Read it here.