IIT 2007 What Puts VCs Off

This post is going to be a short one as I only attended part of this session and now have to run for dinner. This was the gist of a panel discussion comprising of successful VCs and angel investors. Here are the two key points I noted:

Don't go to a VC expecting him to be your product manager, or sales guy, or market researcher, etc., i.e., don't expect for the VC to join hands with you in solving the problem you have and in bridging a serious gap in your argument. Go to them with a complete plan that works out of the box. Of course VCs ultimately do turn out to be very helpful for handling several aspects of a startup's functionality, but don't base your business plan on that.

Meeting a VC is like arranged marriage. You meet them twice or thrice and they tell you yes or nay. This is the fact of the matter since most VCs have many entrepreneurs meeting them all the time and they cannot dedicate too much time to one of them, if the chances of approval are so low. Most VCs make a decision early on in just 2-3 meetings. Consequently, all the usual concepts of arranged marriage apply here. E.g., the first impression really matters, and the VC must have heard really good things about you even before you went to meet them.