How do venture capitalists choose who they invest into

1. Be credible
2. Be a pleasant person to work with
3. There is no point 3, really

1. Be credible

Venture capitalists, in their need to be the first at investing in a new promising project, need to base their decisions a lot on intuition when they get pitched or get a recommendation from other people in the industry. Sometimes they need to demonstrate that you are the right team to invest into to their partners from the VC fund and they need to see you credible as well. Either way make your pitch clear and your arguments valid.

2. Be a pleasant person to work with

You will have to demonstrate this in the early stages of the negotiation, before the investment gets in. Avoid being hard to find, provide the information that is requested from you in a timely manner and at all costs don’t think of criticizing or complaining around your potential investors as nobody likes whiners.

3. There is no point 3, really

Those advices were given to me by an experienced and successful venture capitalist that I met a couple of weeks ago. I tend to agree that the team and its attitude towards the business they are building is more important than technology, imaginary market-share, potential billions of dollars written in a PowerPoint slide, etc.

Investments go most of the time into the teams and not into the projects.

Related posts:

1. Review of what I did in 2009
2. Online Wiki of the Romanian Internet Market
3. Why one should be involved in more than one project at once
4. Would a startup accelerator help Romanian entrepreneurs?