VC Shop Talk
Elizabeth Spiers of Capital Influx with an insight into the world of entrepreneurship and venture capital. Lots of good stuff--

My client is a web-services veteran and has made [and lost] significant sums of money in that sector. He's also a limited partner at two of the largest VC funds in New York. These women had no idea what his background was and didn't ask. He, naturally, didn't volunteer. They spent a good 15 minutes explaining how wonderful this "Internet" thing is because it allows you to sell things without geographic restraint. He took it in good stride and responded that he understood the value of the Internet, having made money in web services but expressed some doubts about the inherent value of their business model. Their response was to reiterate the value of the Internet, as if he just didn't "get it." One of them was a little condescending and insinuated that we just weren't visionary enough to appreciate the model. [The fact that the model has been tried and has failed numerous times was apparently irrelevant.]

At least no one got stabbed in the head with a pen. Yet.

I had to sit in a meeting yesterday with a similar fellow who was trying to get the City to go into the low-cost housing business with an exciting new low-cost building material, which could be assembled in a low-cost factory using low-cost prison inmates; said material only being complete after using said gentleman's finishing machinery, which we would have to buy. All well and good, except the City proper does not build houses, the Housing Authority does. The second little snag showed up when I asked the question "Is this a HUD approved material?" No. "Are you working on getting it approved?" Yeah, I think they are. I tried to explain that no matter how great and wonderful it was, if it wasn't HUD approved, it wasn't going to fly with the Housing Authority. Never did seem to stick.

Oh well.
posted by Terry at 12:06:00 PM