Doing venture investing well over time doesn’t require doing one thing well. It requires getting multiple things right.
It is about seeing what is unique and potentially world-changing in every startup and founding team, and at the same time building a portfolio where you get paid for the risk you take.
Building a startup (and hence investing in them) is risky across several dimensions: building a great product that solves an important problem, getting the product to market, recruiting a great team and not running out of money.
A startup raising venture capital rarely gets more than 24 months of cash. Which means the company needs to solve a bunch of problems quickly, or it will run out of cash and die.
When investing in such companies, thinking about how different risks can be addressed and eliminated (even if that is done by the founders and the team) becomes as important as seeing the future.
