“If it’s a bad idea, then chances are that there won’t be competition for it” - An interesting and refreshing insight from a veteran VC, who believes in going contrarian.

Thanks to Wei Chong, Weijin and Yujun (notice the Weis and “Jins”?), a group of us was able to meet Gus Tai, an accomplished VC from Trinity Ventures and Hasan, a first-time entrepreneur for our Conversation Series session. It was meant to be a casual discussion that revolves around the topic of We were really grateful to our two guests since we don’t really see any immediate benefits for them to even travel to our humble NOC office (with only pizza+soda served) to give us their insights on the topic discussed.

It was a shame that we can’t get more people to attend the discussion because all of us are so bogged down with work, especially the 10th batch. Our business plan presentations and reports (50%) are due on 5th Dec, our GEL assignment worth 30% and coaching report (10%) is due on the 1st Dec, and there’s so many other interesting people that we would love so much to meet, and so many other things that we would love to do.

Musings aside, I like Gus’s style of GTD (A lingo for Getting Things Done). Only 1 out of 200 business plans were accepted by Gus, and he gave a very interesting insight into the way he handles business plans.

“I take 15 seconds to decide whether I want to meet the founders. If I can’t decide after 15 seconds - I will take another 2 minutes to decide. The rest of the emails are deleted.”

He gave us some glimpse about the life of a VC. It appears that the general VC spends 60% of their time meeting the companies in their portfolio, and the remaining 40% on upcoming business plans. I think that Trinity holds a pretty good policy that they need only to invest in 2 plans a year. It relieves the burden to make investment decisions based on a specific target, but more on whether a company is profitable.

Hasan brought a really refreshing touch to the discussion because we felt that we can connect to him better in terms of status. What can be more inspiring than meeting up with a brillant first-time entrepreneur and getting to know how he maneveur pass pitfalls and his tips and tricks in the way he handles his startup.

Hasan sees cold-calling more than a sales tool, but rather as a feedback mechanism to what customers really want. By calling customers, you can perfect your pitch, and through the knocks and bumps along the way toughen yourself against rejections. The best startups adjust their idea according to their customer feedback.

It’s interesting when I try to sum up the various thought process that goes through my head throughout the discussion. Gus shared with us the insight of an entrepreneur “showing passionate disinterest” in his idea. This oxymoron phrase is more clearly defined as the entrepreneur’s need to balance between to detach his ego from his idea so that he can accept feedback more receptively; and yet at the same time be passionate enough about his idea so that he keep trying and finding a way out.

I was so lucky to have meet 4 VCs today. My company just organized a lunch session between our employees and our board of directors, and the 3 VCs for my company gave really awesome insights into the way they handle the decision making process.

But on behalf on NUSEA, I would really like to thank Gus and Hasan for spending their time to come down to the NOC office to share with us their experience. I don’t think they will ever understand how much the interaction means for us!!