Today, I had an opportunity to attend a workshop on Venture Capital conducted by INSEAD Prof. Henning Piezunka. I loved his openness and the unique examples he gave to explain the points. Overall, the workshop was very thought-provoking and gave an insider view of the VC.

During this workshop, I made notes which I am sharing hoping that these would help others as well. Following are the points which were most striking to me.

  1. Types of Learning:

    1. Stealing:

    Deploying what is discussed the next time you are working

    2. Inspiration:

    The discussion triggers an idea that you can use

    3. Oyster:

    The discussion helps you to change but requires a lot of tweaking before it can be implemented.

    4. Discomfort:

    The discussion is intriguing but you don’t fully understand/know about it.

  2. The best way to predict the future is to create it. The second best way is to finance it.
  3. Your business is not in isolation. You need to be aware of your competition.
  4. We now have fewer IPOs compared to earlier times because companies can easily raise money privately. For example, Uber could raise $5M from Goldman Sachs in quite a small amount of time.
  5. VCs have skewed returns on investment.
  6. VC is about having asymmetric information.
  7. You need to have a brand when there is more supply than demand.
  8. Understanding both perspectives is very helpful irrespective of which side of the table you are.
  9. A good VC attracts ventures like a magnet.
  10. There are two ways to get good ventures: Fishing, Hunting
  11. The best way to get invited to a party is to host a party.
  12. It happens that the founders are sometimes replaced because VCs think that the founders could take the company from 0 to 1 but they can’t take it from 1 to 100 which is bad for founders. So to lure them, VCs invest in founder-led companies to show the founders that they will keep them in place.
  13. Nothing attracts like success: VCs that are successful early on tend to remain successful.
  14. You need to have an image of success.
  15. Do not worry about attention “in general” — you need attention from the right people.
  16. Access to the right startups, founders is very important in VC. Therefore you will be largely hired for your network.
  17. From a profitability point of view, VC is the reverse of insurance. It banks on the fact that some of the startups will be so successful that they will outweigh the losses = Failing ventures but winning portfolios.
  18. To be a good VC, you have to be accurate and different.
  19. Contrarian Question: Write down something you believe to be true that most people believe to be false.
  20. People thinking that you are stupid when you are acting on a contrarian question is normal.
  21. It’s difficult to assess the health at an early stage.
  22. Consultants focus on macro domain whereas entrepreneurs focus on the micro level.
  23. The success of a company depends on if there are customers and are they happy.
  24. Sustainable advantage of a company must be:1. Valuable2. Rare3. In-imitable4. Non-substitutable


#startups #vc