Navigating venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurs

Time. Mentor. Network. Truth.

I left off beauty because that is in the eye of the beholder. A recent experience showed me the landscape of the entrepreneurial adventure. Let’s meet the animals on the Pampas.

There are venture capitalists; these are some of the larger animals and very difficult to catch. They often travel in herds. They are looking for very large watering holes. When they arrive at the watering hole, the small animals move aside. They have big feet, and they invest “other people’s money.”

Then there are angel investors. They operate at the edges of the watering hole. They are investing their own money or from their trust fund. (When I first got to San Diego, I was astounded by the number of people I met who seemed to have no apparent job, but also seemed to have unlimited income.) They can often be found at the smaller watering holes.

And then the entrepreneur. They ended up on the Pampas either by mistake (got on the wrong bus), or deliberately left home determined to find their very own watering hole.

Finally, the mentor. This animal is looking for people who are looking for the watering hole. This animal thinks he knows where the watering hole is but he is not so quick with the map. In Hollywood, the map to the star’s home costs $34.95. There are no free lunches.

Now I recently spent some time on the Pampas. I met a would-be mentor. He came to my office and gave me a critique of my latest half-baked idea. I thanked him. A couple of days later, he asked to come and pitch me his own idea. I agreed to listen. After all, this is the classic reciprocity syndrome. But I got whipsawed. No idea, he simply wanted to come back and ask me for a job.

Momma doesn’t like bait and switch. Water hole dries up fast.

Then I participated on a startup panel. No women. I have a new rule. No women, no me. The United Nations recently did its annual meeting promoting equality for women and girls, and the first five speakers were men. Gimme a break.

Next up, I did another mentoring thing with 40 entrepreneurs. Oy! But one pitch hooked me. The other mentors gave him a very low score. I gave him the highest. His idea was in my wheelhouse. Health care and AI.

The corollary to that is when your idea gets rejected, consider the possibility that your listener did not understand your space. Let’s face it, some angels might turn away from a water hole even if it were bubbling Don Julio 1942.

In 2010, CRISPR was a breakthrough technology that was discovered at Berkeley. The university failed to get the patent. Missed that watering hole. It is exactly these stories (there are hundreds) that keep the entrepreneur in the hunt. After all, one person’s swamp is another person’s Lake Michigan.

I get a few email pitches every week. If moderately interested, I say thank you and ask them to “send me your deck.” The interesting factoid. Almost no one ever sends their deck. And there is no phone number in their email signature. The idea of a phone number is novel, I understand, but look, it’s not like I still use a rotary dial.

I love Adam Grant. He wrote recently about the phrase “I owe you one” when people want to thank him for his generosity of spirit. No, you don’t. Grant (and I hope at times, myself) does this because he is a giver. He argues that you need to be a “receiver.” Just be appreciative. Not every interaction is a transaction. Life is not a zero-sum game.

Finally, I get an offer to invest in an “AI startup mentor service providing tailored advice” designed to help other startups. Talk about an original idea. The founder is a sophomore at Yale, and his team is eight other elite young people.

Maybe they have flyover drones for spotting watering holes. After all, these bodies of water don’t usually show up on Google maps, but no arrogance, Neil. I am always reminded that it’s what you don’t know that you don’t know that will kill you. I asked him to send me the deck.

No. 802: Find your own Pampas.

Senturia is a serial entrepreneur who invests in startups. Please email ideas to neil@unicornhunter.ai.