Businesses fail when the entrepreneur does not use their intuition.
They don’t have a clear vision for their business and they don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing.
They can easily be swayed one way or the other by a journalist, a friend, or even a mentor.
Mark Peter Davis has been a lifelong entrepreneur. He says that it is not something he chose as a career. It’s always been a hobby and a passion for him.
He started selling baseball cards in elementary school, candy in junior high, and he also sold computers to graduating seniors.
David Hornik came to Silicon Valley in the early 90s, and he still, to this day, clearly remembers very vividly the first time he spent 3 hours with an amazing founder working with him on his business.
By the time David was done with the conversation, he knew he wanted to be an investor.
Guy Kawasaki wrote “The Art of the Start”, and he does know a thing or two about “The Art of VC”.
How does Guy spot smart founders? Does he just have a knack for it? Is it his network? Or does he know something about venture capital that we’ve completely missed?
These days, I get asked the question “how to get into venture capital” quite often. Venture capital is a “hot” industry right now, and everyone seems to believe that there’s one clear path to getting into venture capital.