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The most popular Products mentioned in /r/venturecapital:
The most popular Services mentioned in /r/venturecapital:
Notion
Airtable
SlideShare
Match.com
Gitential
Polar
Quora
Kapwing
The most popular Android Apps mentioned in /r/venturecapital:
The most popular reviews in /r/venturecapital:
Read the book Venture Deals by Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson
This is the book on it, but someone coming into a lot of money - even from selling a startup - is unlikely to be in possession of everything they need to start a fund even if they read a book on the subject.
https://smile.amazon.com/Raise-Venture-Capital-Fund-Understanding/dp/1736234315?sa-no-redirect=1
OP, I found this book useful. It's not going to makes you am expert, but it identifies the skills that you need to make it in VC, gives you an introduction to all of them, and then shows you how they fit together. Again, it won't make you an expert, but after reading it you'll at least have a good idea of what you're trying to accomplish and what boxes you need to check.
Think of it as two domains: what you and how you say it.
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What you say
- Look at prior examples from the fund to see what's considered salient
- Note how stage, sector will influence what's relevant
- Be pithy
- Get feedback early and continuously on what information to include
- If necessary, use appendices or link other documents for details
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How you say it
- Learn basic graphic design skills
- Choose your platform (PowerPoint, Keynote, Slides) and dive into advanced features
- Consider books like this on slide design
- Check Pinterest or Google Images for inspiration (e.g., timeline designs)
- Consider getting a big monitor and a mouse to make doing layout less unpleasant
It’s good to know the mechanics of VC investing, but it’s also good to know it’s history. Limited-time deal: VC: An American History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674988000/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_dl_JSJV8FMJNBN4NGGH1TGZ
One aspect that I can add is that VCs can certainly do a better job when it comes to code repository analysis. They very often outsource their tech due diligence to third parties instead of looking at source code themselves. In the case of tech startups, most value is very frequently in the code itself: who were the key contributors, how did the development velocity change over time, how does the collaboration pattern look like in the org, is everything in the slide deck true about the number of devs from start to date, etc... Disclosure: I happen to work on a B2B SaaS platform that creates these analytics and although our core market is not investors (it's developers and their managers themselves), I also see the value creation of one-time analyses for VCs before investments.
You can check out Gitential here: https://gitential.com/ - Software Development Analytics
You'll find a useful template deck here from them. https://www.slideshare.net/PitchDeckCoach/sequoia-capital-pitchdecktemplate - their recommendation on what they like entrepreneurs to share in pitches.
Here - look at slide 8 of this presentation I gave a couple of weeks ago:
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Beyond what you already tried is:
a) Find an accelerator or incubator in your area
b) Tradeshow or other event w/ a VC panel
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You have to understand that VCs are approach by many, many, many people - cold emailing is not a great way to get introduced. Think of it just like sales - cold calls and emails are a rough way to make contact, if your response rate is 1% (which is typical), then you'd need to email 100 people (well, that would only give you a 66% of getting a response, but I'm making a point, not doing statistics).
That means you need a warm introduction. And the best warm introduction is something called a double opt-in. Let's say you are A, you know B, who knows C. The double opt-in is:
- You talk to B, and ask for an introduction to C
- B talk to C, says would you like to meet A, here's why I think you shoud. C says yes, please introduce me.
- B introduced you to C.
That's it, there really isn't an easier way. To understand why, just imagine you had a sign pasted to your back saying "I have a $10M dollars I am giving away. Ask me how". Now imagine how many people are going to reach out to you.
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Good luck!
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The venture capital cycle by Paul Gompers is a VERY technical book (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/venture-capital-cycle), and also VC: An American History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674248260/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_TNQ2R02G4PX9C071Y6XE.
Airtable - there is a template Precursor uses in their Universe, I'd check it out. Great way to track investments, valuation at a glance, who is raising etc. https://airtable.com/universe/exp3iBIEpdjB3pGVk/how-to-manage-a-80-portfolio-with-a-less5-person-team
I'd use airtable to augment Slack and use Slack to discuss companies. The systems seem complimentary and can solve for different needs.
For folks who were in the A suggest this - key point at bottom is you ask them for something. Then if they come through you learn something. https://www.kapwing.com/blog/how-to-write-investor-updates/
I believe investors would be delighted to invest in dating apps, as much as they would be to invest in any established consumer category if they get conviction you will be successful. They're leery of investing in consumer apps generally, though, without validation of exactly that, usually through some traction and good growth, retention, and/or referral metrics. Tinder was a blowout success long after Match.com and others had mature levels of dominance of the category, and Bumble came along and found ways to succeed after Tinder; Grindr and their peers have been successful in their focus areas.
My question to you would be, how do you differentiate and win?
Also, I would like to point out that Ray Kurzweil is dropping his next book on this The Singularity is Nearer in the fall! https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Nearer-Ray-Kurzweil-ebook/dp/B08Y6FYJVY
I strongly recommend you read blood sweat and pixels to give you Ann operational understanding of what happens in these firms.
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Pixels-Triumphant-Turbulent/dp/0062651234
If you’re looking to learn about the space and learn the terminology, Brad Feld’s book Venture deals is a good place to go.
I've read a few of your posts, and it seems to me you are suffering from a common challenge faced by two-sided marketplaces like AirBnB or Ebay: the platform is only valuable with other people already using it, so how do you get your first users?
If I were you, I would start looking at strategies to acquire users beyond having a big expensive launch. While there are exceptions, most startups don't have huge budgets for that and instead have to find novel ways to stand out.
For example you might create a landing page for your product and have people pre-register with their email address for early access. Once you get enough registrations to ensure the initial experience won't be bad, you can launch the product in beta and use the feedback from your early users to improve the product. If users like what you've built and your retention is strong, you will then have a solid group of users that you can then expand using other techniques (user referrals, inbound marketing, etc.)
A great book on the subject of acquiring users is Traction, definitely recommend it in your case.
If you have trouble getting enough people to pre-register for your product, then there are other issues to resolve either with the problem you are trying to solve, your solution, or your assumptions about the audience you are serving.
These aren't Venture only (as honestly, there are relatively few Impact VC Books, but)
Joel's Clean-Money-Revolution-Reinventing-Capitalism (He actually ran/runs an impact VC fund)
Anthony Bugg-Levine's: Impact-Investing-Transforming-Making-Difference