The challenge for VCs is that it is easy to spend a lot of time going nowhere on advised deals. Good advisors know that the way to reach the highest price is to keep investors guessing about whether they are going to win the deal. As a result there is usually at least one VC who invests a lot of resources and then loses. And when you lose a deal as a VC you are left with very little, and often precisely nothing, to show for your efforts.

I am much more excited, however, to see an email from someone I respect who is helping a company because he is on the board or board of advisors. I generally feel that my chances of success are much higher from this kind of introduction because it will be less widely shopped, and, ceteris paribus, it will get more attention than an advised deal.

– Nic Brisbourne, Advisors: they don’t help VCs, but they can help start-ups via The Kernel

This is one of the reasons that I recommend to my startup clients that they create a real advisory board, people that will play an active, although very part-time role working with the company, and that the introductions from those advisory board members are worth a lot. 

I don’t approach VCs with seven deals a month, so if I were to contact Nic Brisbourne with something, he’d likely take a meeting. (Nic’s a friend, by the way.)

Source: kernelmag.com

9 August 2012 25
quotationsnic brisbourneadvisory companiesvcadvisory boardsfunding

Notes

  1. stoweboyd posted this

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