No Right Way in VC

I chatted with a venture investor today. He built a new approach to deploying early-stage capital to early founders. It’s doing well and could prove impactful. I asked what he’d learned from watching this new approach to investing take off. He said he learned that there is no right way in venture capital—there’s only the way that’s available to you.

He shared a ton of other great things that I’ll digest shortly, but this one immediately stuck out to me because I don’t think it’s historically been true of the venture capital industry. The network problem in VC applied to outsiders looking to enter the industry as investors and, of course, founders seeking capital. No way was available to people outside traditional venture capital networks.

The pandemic and other factors have changed venture capital. I think we’ll begin to see new ways for high-potential venture investors to raise and deploy capital and for high-potential founders to connect with investors and access capital. When that happens, the entrepreneurial impact will be massive.