If you want to really understand the VC game listen to one entrepreneur: Marc Andreessen

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If you want to really understand the VC game listen to one entrepreneur: Marc Andreessen

By Jon Gillespie-Brown | August 18, 2008

If one person I know really has a great perspective on VC it’s Marc and he has written 3 blog posts on the topic that every startup should read and learn from - they are punchy, unbiased and really on the money:

Take the time to read them all. Marc does the best job of giving you the full low down in 10 mins reading - and having read 100’s pages on the topic and knowing many VCs I can tell you this is time well spent vs. having to follow my example!

In Part 1 he gives you nice intro as to whether you should approaching a VC and all the basics.

In Part 2 - “the real meat and potatoes”:

Comparing venture firms, and comparing partners within firms.
The VC’s ideal investment.
How much help, and what kinds of help, you can expect from your VC.
How VC’s spend an awful lot of their time, and why you should feel sorry for them.
VCs: soulless and rapacious capitalists, or surprisingly generous philanthropists? Or both?
Why we should be thankful that we live in a world in which VCs exist, even if they yell at us during board meetings, assuming they’ll fund our companies at all.
And, how to make a VC’s head explode.

Part 3: In in his final post he goes through the VC cycles and some interesting facts about the industry.