Mentorship with Vish Mishra, Clearstone Venture Partners on April 4 2008
April 15th, 2008 | Published in Mentorship
Into our humble NOC office, in walk a seasoned and accomplished VC, the Vish Mishra to meet up with young aspiring entreprenuers. From the start of the session, all our nervousness melted away because Vish was all fired up to share the perils and joys of starting a venture. So here began our practical lessons:
1) Venture capital activity is highest in USA concentrating in the Silicon Valley. Here are the statistics:
$28 billion in US, $5 billion in Europe, $1 billion in India, $2 billion in Israel
This is a measure of entrepreneurial activities.
2) Characteristics of an entrepreneur:
- risk taking, wants to serve 1 set of customers very well, think global, able to build a team with complementary sets of skills
3) Some advice to succeed:
- Be passionate about an industry and do something really, really well - you need to be a deep domain expert to build your credibility as a young entrepreneur. Talk to experts and many customers of the pain that you are solving.
- Pick the best people who know more than you do
- Big pain that is not served well = Big idea
- Bringn mentors or lawyers when you pitch
4) Before you marry with a VC, make sure you proof that there is a pain. Then write the story (business plan) then the only a VC will value your business.
5) Stay where your customers are. If they are in China, go to China.
6) It doesn’t really matter if you have low valuation, the key is to build your business. Higher valuation is a result of a good business executed. He repeated “Build your business”.
7) Common mistakes:
- Founders overbelieve their value proposition. Is the problem real?
- Ppl buy solutions, not technology. So focus on making a solution, not just a long list of useless specs of a product.
- Share.
- Getting the wrong people. Be honest and upright and you will attract similar people.
To this inspiring man, thank you .
