Whose Investment: Traditional VCs vs Entrepreneur turned VCs

Both have their own merits. Traditional VCs tyoically are hands-off whic means less micromanagement and more trust of execution which works well for experienced professionals or repeat founders. Whereas Entrepreneur turned VCs can make great contributions for young first time founders to learn the ropes of entrepreneurship, hustle and zero-to-one venture buildig tactics. Hence the color of the money is very important.

Examples how Entrepreneur turned VCs - Operator VCs Help

“Pick up the phone and start dialling”.

For instance one of them sat down across many evenings and late nights and we went through the minutiae of a cold call script.

I reluctantly started to cold call. As the ringtone chimed during each dial, I would always cross my fingers and pray “Don’t pick up, don’t pick up” - so I would not have to face rejection.

Yet, the more I cold called, the more I mastered my numbers - X calls led to Y meetings and Z sales. More importantly, I realised why it was so important to be doing the first cold calls - if you can’t sell your company as a founder, how do you expect anyone else to?

The opposite of “confirmation bias” is “disagreement bias”. I’ve noticed that good sceptics often ask good questions. My learning: keep your ears open for dissonance with your view and decisions. That way, God forbid, if you have to make a U-Turn, you can. And for heaven’s sake, don’t make it an ego issue.

War rooms help create a mindset that no body is above the game and it gives a license to everyone in the room to challenge the most basic assumption which could also mean executives in leadership logically challenging the Founders on often over looked aspects. When markets change often this setup helps decide and debunk stale assumptions in a new market setting.