Six Crucial Steps for Raising Venture Capital

(oooo, I couldn’t let this one pass by – it’s too juicy.)

This heading is a pitch from some consultant in Sydney that wants people to pay to listen to the mystical six crucial steps for raising venture capital.

Here’s my version.

1. Have a fashionable business

2. Have a high growth business plan that is well thought through and leads to a verifiable high value exit opportunity

3. Have a good mix of industry experience and skills in your team

4. Be 100% committed to the company. This means being maniacally bent on global domination. Nothing less

5. Understand what your venture capitalist is looking for and that this matches your proposition

6. Go to the US where there are venture capitalists with large funds and focused industry sector investment strategies who will both understand your business and be able to add to it. And stay away from Australian capital ‘advisers’ charading as venture capitalists; and tiny VC funds with odd LP and management structures that will end up choking you to death with tiny licks of capital and weird behaviour; and anybody wanting you to pay for their advice on the subject