Openly sharing the launch of a venture capital firm
“The operational side of venture capital is seldom discussed openly.” – Adeo Ressi notes.
As a founder, entrepreneur and Director at the Founder Institute in Frankfurt I had the opportunity of joining the first cohort of the Founder Institute VC Lab. This is an ambition program – the VC Lab has been set up as a virtual program that helps new managers to launch their own angel, pre-seed, seed or Series A venture capital firm.
We are starting a VC Firm!
Over the next weeks, as I participate in the program, I would like to share through a few posts the process of creating this type of structure.
Now, if this VC program is anything like the Founder Institute start-up program, there is a reasonable chance I’m going to fail. Hold on, I’m not being negative, let me explain.
These programs are very structured, hard and have a graduation rate below 50%. This isn’t a bad thing – there are many good reasons why Founders do not complete the start-up program – from personal time allocation to business ideas that need more maturity to expertise to product fit. And when ideas need more time, many Founders come back to complete the program.
My personal concern is three fold – naively perhaps but my major concerns right now are:
- Will I be able to fit this into what is already a very busy schedule?
- Will I be able to motivate and lead a team to bring a VC firm together?
- Will we be able to convince people to invest in a fund?
This last point, the process of defining an investment vehicle, the working fund thesis and all of the untransparent processes of VC firm creation are why I’m writing.
It’s an exciting moment!
And I’m really not underestimating the regulatory and structural work that needs to be done. All the documentation needs and filings and administrative work that needs to be completed is tremendously daunting.
Whatever happens, I’m approaching this first as a learning opportunity – both about venture capital but also about improving my capacity to pitch, to develop and share a mission and on refining my own strategy as an advisor, mentor, entrepreneur and start-up ecosystem supporter.
So watch this space – We are busy defining our “Why” – Why are we doing this. What do we care about and what are we going to fund. We are also defining the team and effort to get this project going.
Like I said, it’s going to be a lot of work!