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The two aren't mutually incompatible. If you're an early-stage investor you don't look for unicorns not because you don't want them (you obviously do) but beca
by ig1 11y ago
The two aren't mutually incompatible.
If you're an early-stage investor you don't look for unicorns not because you don't want them (you obviously do) but because you can't spot them based on business model, traction, etc.
As an early stage investor you focus on team/founders because that's the best early predictor that a company will become a unicorn in the longer term.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoNo no no. According to people commenting here, it's not the team or founders, it's luck. So you need a way to identify luck. Then you're golden!
- bbaumgar 11y agoThat's not the message (most) are conveying. The formula is: Great team + great market = great business (for some definition of great, almost always < 1bn) Great team + great market + luck = billion dollar business.
- rfrey 11y agoNobody is saying luck is sufficient, just that it's necessary. As is talent, hard work, &c. The role of luck ("fortune", "fate") in the success of great people is a deep and ancient question, and you should not dismiss it. Machiavelli's Prince is at least 50% about the subject, and Sun Tzu is infatuated with it. Acknowledging luck does not mean dismissing the successful - it's just intellectual honesty.
- weddpros 11y agoI can understand how a very logic/scientific mind could have difficulty with the concept of luck. Citing literature may not help. Let's say there's some stochastic mechanics at work, randomness more than 'luck'. Luck is the attribute of someone, when randomness is an attribute of events, which makes a big difference. Of course I can understand people citing 'luck' as necessary... but it's more superstition than science. All in all, it means you can't really know for sure...
- rfrey 11y agoYou're right, "luck" is a bad word because some people do have the notion of luck as an attribute. It's not exactly the same as a stochastic variable though. It's really any forces that you cannot influence, control, or anticipate.
- tptacek 11y agoI readily, happily accept that dedicated seed-stage investors, "angels", whatever we call them today, have different incentives and selection processes than "venture capitalists" in the Greylock sense. I'm a little unclear on how the economics of seed-stage investors interlock with those of venture capitalists, and what level of influence VC decisions have over the whole ecosystem. But from the vantage point of a founder, modern seed stage investors seem like an unalloyed improvement.