Interesting posts coming from the blog, Both Sides of the Room by Mark Suster, entrepreneur turned VC. I particularly liked his recent post on Dealing with the Elephant in the Room.
There’s an old saying that if I’m talking with you and I start the conversation by saying, “whatever you do, DO NOT think about Elephants” then you can’t help but thinking about elephants while we’re speaking. There’s a lot of truth in this adage. It’s sometimes called “The Elephant in the Room” because even when you don’t mention not to think about an Elephant there are certain issues that you just can’t stop thinking about whether they are brought up or not.
Many businesses that pitch to me have Elephant issues and I’d like to tell you how to deal with these when you’re raising venture capital. Elephant issues are those things that the VC would automatically be thinking about when you’re speaking but he/she may not immediately ask you about either for legal reasons or out of courtesy.
But the VC is thinking about the issue whether you address it or not. I’d like to separate these from skeletons in your closet which are issues that the VC would have no idea about when you’re meeting but might discover later during due diligence.
You might want to include Mark’s blog as part of your must-reading list.
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