How Many Pro's You Have?

Driving in to school today, as I do most mornings, I was listening to Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN radio. Today they were talking about March Madness and how you pick which teams are going to win, especially in the early round games. And Jimmy Dykes, one of the ESPN game analysts said that to figure out which team has the best chance of winning, you have to answer the question, “How many pro’s you have?” What Dykes meant was when you look at both rosters, you look at which team has the most players who are going to go on to the NBA and play, and especially in tournament crunch time, that’s the team you want to pick.

As I think back to being a part of an angel group in Florida, that’s exactly how I, and the rest of the group decided which companies we wanted to invest in…and it was based on which team had the real “pros.” Our group was getting on an average, around 25 to 30 business plans a month to read. We would narrow this down to just two presentations a month, and since we shut down for the summer, we were looking at around 20 opportunities a year out of the more than 350 business plans that were sent our way. Many people have said this, and when our own money was on the line, most of us deferred back to the notion of “I’d rather in invest in an A team with a B idea, than an A idea with just a B Team.” So even in entrepreneurship, we were using the notion of “How many pro’s you have” to decide which deals to invest in. As you are building your start-up team, remember that and find the best players you can to fill each slot. Friends are good, family is OK, but the best of the best is the best way to get your shot at angel and other institutional funding.

Now, back to the NCAA tourney and Go ‘Cuse!