The venture world always seems to be driven by transactions — here’s a little bit on the ideological plane of venture investing. Interesting read…
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Some food for thought:
http://snipurl.com/1g71r
wanderer
Youtube was not the first to think up the online video sharing idea. I think the team’s strength was in keeping things simple and easy to use. That’s where Youtube scored over all others in the same space.
Of course, the viral marketing helped. Google’s decision to move beyond search at the right time also did. Media hype added fuel to the issue. Sequoia, I would say, is the key player in the entire story (it helped that they are also an investor in Google).
Take something like Del.icio.us. Such an old hat Web 1.0 idea, but they sold for $30 m. How do these deals get done? Yahoo! has even tried to snap up Facebook for $1 billion! WTF?
just wondering …
whether youtube had the right team?
or
right idea?
Hi Alok,
I was almost coaxed in to sharing my own thoughts on the topic running thru this discussion thread. And i too feel that, it is very important to to do an objective assessment of your capabilities vis-a -vis your enterpreneurial adventure. Experienced or not ,the quality of the team should be complimetary to the project.
I say this from personal experience. Our team currently involved in setting up an online English tutoring enterprise, though not of the “brand ivy league” family has been able to work ahead steadfastly. We are working to develop a BPO-type home-shoring model to provide 24/7 spoken english tutoring services to the Chinese through the telephone + internet. Do check us out at http://www.51englishspeak.com
Best,
Prateek
Its strange why the correct answer to every good question is “it depends” 🙂 Clearly, people with little experience do get funded as well, and that implies that other things in the plan can help make up for lack of experience.
Also, the criticality of experience is dependent on what business one is into. In a business that involves selling to telcos or enterprise software, no amount of advisory input will ingrain the sales process into the team. The team has to have gone through it. If the founder doesnt have that experience, one has to bring in people who do. In an internet business, few people have had experience (until recently) and hence innovation and energy have been sought after.
I guess it boils down to asking not just “is this a good business to do?”, but also “why am i/we the right person/team to do this?”