VC Expert Interview - What to Look for in Investments
- 01:59
Uzma answers, what is a priority for you when looking at a new company to invest in?
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Yeah, I think team is top of the list of priorities. So you need a team that is able to execute, that is able to sell, they need to be able to sell, to be able to fundraise and to be able to hire top talent. If you're looking at hiring really brilliant people, you need to kind of be able to, you know, pitch to them and get them away from their very high paying job to come and join a startup. And so that sales piece for a founding team is very important. You should be able to sell your vision to investors, to other entrepreneurs and talent so that you're able to build a great team. I think their ability to, their self-awareness, so knowing where the gaps are, startups are very lean, and especially at seed stage, it may just be two founders. So it's an understanding of do they know where their gaps are, team-wise, do they know where their gaps are with respect to like execution as they scale commercially? And while we understand that early stage teams will be very small and they may be very vertically specialized in an area, I still look for an appreciation of like, do they understand what a commercial model in this space would look like? What would be the challenges of go to go to market? And some high level thinking on those things. I may not look for a fully fleshed out like, you know, sort of pricing model or go-to market strategy, but, and a good enough idea at those early stages is very important. So I think having that commercial savviness is key. I think from a returns perspective. The other piece that you look at is obviously market. Is the market huge enough that if you were to scale this business and if they were to deliver the product, would you be able to kind of generate the kind of returns that move the needle on the fund? That will vary. If you are a hundred million fund, a smaller exit will be able to drive bigger returns for you than a, you know, $3 billion fund where you actually need to generate billion dollar exits to be able to drive those returns.