Saturday, October 09, 2010

Venture Capital Segmentation

Caterina, Chris and meImage by Zach Klein via FlickrChris Dixon's is a good blog to follow if you want to keep abreast developments in the fast churning VC industry. He is an entrepreneur and one of those angels that you will read about a lot, people who are changing the face of the game.
Chris Dixon: The segmentation of the venture industry: Venture capital has only existed in its modern form for about 35 years. ...... “customers” (entrepreneurs) have flocked to more specialized “products.” ...... segmentation by company stage. ..... The segmentation of the venture industry is healthy for startups and innovation at large, even if at the moment it might be uncomfortable and confusing for some of the people involved.
I like his conclusion here. He says, and I agree, that the churn has been healthy and the segmentation has been welcome.
Chris Dixon: If you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis, your goals aren’t ambitious enough: My most useful career experience was about eight years ago when I was trying to break into the world of VC-backed startups. I applied to hundreds of jobs: low-level VC roles, startups jobs, even to big tech companies. I got rejected from every single one..... I had a strange resume .... I probably got rejected by someone once a day last week alone
And I am thinking the guy still has a strange resume.

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More Entrepreneurs Should Blog

OnStartups.com: Why Every Entrepreneur Should Write and 9 Tips To Get Started: If you asked me to tell you a list of three of the best decisions in my life, I can certainly tell you that regularly writing is one of them...... Writing on a regular schedule takes a lot of discipline, just like going to the gym or practicing a new martial art. ..... If you keep yourself dedicated to writing on a consistent schedule, those important values will carry over to other facets of life including startups. ..... By putting yourself out there and making yourself open to meeting as many people as possible, serendipity is much more likely to happen. ..... The majority of good things that have happened to me in business can be traced back to my writing
There are more great VC bloggers than there are great entrepreneur bloggers, and I have long wondered why. I have also long felt that situation needs to be rectified.

Social media is so essential. You need to do your own getting the word out. Most of your communication will be small group and perhaps intense. There will be a lot of in group communication. That is why social media is called social media and not mass media.

Updates that can sound bizarre to strangers are necessary staple to intimates.

But then there is also the matter of reaching out to people you might not be able to meet in person. Long form blogging is my favorite social media platform. It allows you to dip into far flung conversations. Meaningful participation becomes possible.

The VCs just have done a better job. I feel like I am half way to becoming a VC myself just from reading the many VC blogs. I have a pretty good feel of the churn that is going on in the VC industry right now.

Even former entrepreneur VCs will tell you, the real action is in creating companies, not in funding them. "All I do is write checks," Fred Wilson once said, which is an understatement, but it is the half truth.

I would go so far as to say every tech entrepreneur ought to blog. None of the top ones do. And I wonder why.

The list is not all that big. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Wordpress/Blogger, and FourSquare, and I think you are all set. If you are active on those five platforms I think you are really into social media. And you are reaching out to people you need to be reaching out to.

Regular writing is like working out for the mind. When you blog regularly, you read your news differently. You also read more.

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