Fred Wilson's: Venture Capital Do's and Don't

Fred Wilson is currently being interviewed on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY by Michael Arrington and a topic of discussion that came up was the “Best and Worst Things to do in VC Pitches.” If you’re not familiar with Fred Wilson, he is a managing partner and venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures in New York City. Check out the do’s and don’ts when it comes to raising money from a venture capital firm.

Let’s start with the bad: Apparently venture capitalists really hate back stories, “I just don’t fucking care,” said Arrington who is currently a VC at CrunchFund, a fund he started after he left TechCrunch.  Another important thing is to have a product built beforehand and to make sure that the software works.  When software doesn’t work during a meeting it’s painful for the founder, but “It’s painful for me too,” said Mr. Wilson.

In terms of the good, Wilson really likes when founders start off the meeting and make a bold audacious statement up front.  When Mr. Wilson met with the founder of Twilio, the founder started off the meeting with the following statement, “I’ve taken the entire world of telephony and reduced it to five API calls.”  Wilson went on to say, “It’s all about getting a conversation going.”