The Business of Venture Capital & The Resilient Founder

These were originally two different posts on Linkedin but since they are both by the same author, they are reposted together.

TLDR: This book is inspired. Yes, it’s about venture capital, but the principles explored, the anecdotes shared — especially those concrete situations specific to venture capital — are so artfully told that they become applicable to all business, even life. The book also serves as a harvest of other great work and people to explore. Saying you “need” to read it may seem a bit over the top, but you’ll probably feel that way after reading.

“INTRO”: Before writing this review, I made a point to read Ramsinghani’s other works: Startup Boards written with Brad Feld and Matt Blumberg, and also The Resilient Founder. Startup Boards was written in a single unified voice so it was difficult to identify Ramsinghani’s unique contribution, but I recommend it if you’re at that point in your journey. The Resilient Founder was as the title suggested, but also took me by surprise in that it not only presents a portrait of resilience, but provides the foundational knowledge / mental infrastructure and context necessary to actually become resilient.

As for why reading the lexicon before writing the review? Realistic painter Kevin Murphy, founder of Evolve Artist, explained in a sales pitch of his course that a student ought to study with a single master / single approach in order to gain a more unified perspective on a given subject. Murphy shared an anecdote of attending a lecture where two famed portrait artists had completely opposing views on a single topic and his realization that while other masters in the audience could understand the truth of what BOTH were saying (and be enhanced by the opposing perspectives), a student lacking the context to understand the meaning behind the words would be totally lost in the contradiction.

Also, while I believe I understood what I read in this book, the other books helped clarify my own impressions (especially The Resilient Founder). So when you get to the part about me saying that this book, which is sold on kindle as an “eTextBook” is timeless and universal, I want you to know I’m saying it in a context that affirmed that perception! Also, I wanted to have as solid a foundation as possible to scale knowledge in this domain. If you end up reading this one, you may want to read the others.

NOTE: The author of the book is the Founding Partner of Secure Octane Investments, a fund that invests in cybersecurity and infrastructure, which I mention to lend a little credibility to my perception that this book fills your mind with an infrastructure of relationships to build success upon, while simultaneously identifying pressure points of where leverage might be applied (if you’re trying to “hack” your way into VC as a career, looking to secure funding, or invest).

THE REVIEW: “You” may seem really generic, as if it can apply to anyone, but in this case it does. It’s rare to read a book that is not only encompassing in its treatment of a subject, but also inspired.

There are books of the “for dummies” genre that take you on a tour of the forest without examining a single tree… and then there are those more academic in nature, where every chapter is a tedious examination that robs you of context.

The Business of Venture Capital serves not only as an introduction for those beginning a journey into VC (as investors or founders), but I imagine something of a memoir for those who are approaching (or have reached) a summit (as a founder or investor) and are eager to reflect on where they’ve been… perhaps from “the other side of the coin”; alternately, this book might serve as a “return to base camp” so that their next summit may be even higher. It’s both forest and trees, and conveys the same awe you’d experience as if there.

Getting specific as to why I found this book so valuable as to claim you would need it, I recollect upon a personally transformative read: Thomas Sowell’s Knowledge and Decisions. The more you know, the more options you have, the better choices you can make.

Though you’ll learn a lot about the business of venture capital, and the promise of the book is fulfilled… much of the book can be taken as a metaphor for life, especially in the context of pursuing any impossible thing. By means of a wild example: 100-years from now, I imagine this book could be inspiring for someone assembling a team of astronauts to settle Mars, determining which team members to “invest” in as well as the individual astronauts attempting to convince some sponsor for the right to make history and conquer new worlds.

Reading The Business of Venture Capital provides you with the ultimate foundation to scale what you need to know about venture capital, but also (I believe) the foundation you need to succeed in any business. I say any business, because it would seem that VC backed businesses are like any other, except their highs to the moon, and bottomless lows. Not only that, but from seed to exit, the life cycle of VC Investor + VC Backed Founder feels in some ways akin to one of those fast-forwarded videos where you watch a seed grow into a tree flower, die, and be reborn again.

As with great works of fiction where the heroes and villains are larger than life, their actions exaggerated and revealed in a timeline compressed, the lessons reaped from “Venture Capital” appear almost archetypal. Universal. Timeless.

And the opportunity to encounter something that borders on universal or timeless while being highly specific, that’s probably something we all need.

IMPACT IN LIFE: I made my first live referral of this book last weekend, before I completed it. Hopefully this anecdote provides some additional context as to the effect the book had on me, and what it might have for you.

I was at Blaze Pizza in Brentwood with my mom, my wife and kids, the waiter was a sharp teenager that didn’t want to leave a personal pizza for my 5-year old son while he was in the bathroom because, as the waiter said: “I promised him ‘extra cheese’ and wanted him to know I got it.” Later, while conversing about vacation with my 2nd grader and unaware of the last day of school, we ask the high schooler if he knew off hand when it was. He gives a date, but casually drops the fact that he’s done several weeks earlier than anyone else because of 4 AP courses. It begged the follow up question: “do you know what you want to do?” with the answer “Mechanical Engineering, but with the aim of starting a business.” Now, if you’ve never been to Blaze, it’s one of those places where you tip the cashier so waitstaff is not tipped individually, so I figure to pass on a life tip, and tell him he ought to read The Business of Venture Capital.

I say something to the effect of “You know, if you’re thinking about launching a company one day… not everything in this book will apply to you now, but if you read it and keep it filed away in your mind, you might have a stronger frame of reference for while you’re in college. You’ll be more keyed in to recognizing opportunities and may have a stronger frame to view things that may not seem immediately relevant. Tangibly speaking, the book also makes reference to VC funds that look for ‘dorm room startups’ so that might help you be on the look out for firms that recruit wherever you’re going.”

The kid then asks: “How much is this book?” to which I respond: “It’s cheaper on Audible, around $50 or more on Amazon, but I got both. So you might want to just do audible.” He responds “that’s pricey, I’ll have to save up.”

Long story short: I made an “angel investment” of $20 towards his purchase of the book, and whatever unicorn this kid might one day build. It was also meant as an example to my own kids that: working hard, having vision, and being personable are not just fulfilling ends in and of themselves but traits that increase your chances of having good things happen to you. ((elementary school perspective of $20 is like 20k, so i hope my kids remember this forever))

P.S. Saying you “need” to read this might feel a bit over the top, but if you do read, you’ll probably feel it was something you needed.

As a follow up to my review of “The Business of Venture Capital” by Mahendra Ramsinghani, I wanted to follow up on one of his other books: “The Resilient Founder”. Though I made passing mention of “The Resilient Founder” in the original review (link below) — this book deserves its own call out… especially as it seems there is much “free floating anxiety” with people feeling as if they’re just one pay-check away from a disaster.

An implied theme in the original review was: through the lens of Venture Capital, things are bigger, larger than life, more archetypal, and as a result timeless. Though titled “The Resilient Founder”, you don’t need to be a Founder to reap the rewards of reading it. If you’re in pursuit of capturing lightning, YES there will be more you can get out of it — but even if you’re just trying to get to the end of the week, you will discover things that work for people with very heavy problems.

The book is divided into four parts, kicking off with the perspective of what being on the brink of suicide might look like. It may seem like a dark place to begin, but the arc of the book (though nonfiction) feels almost like a Hero’s Journey. Part I might be likened to a tour of “The Pit” and understanding the self-made prison (or hell) we might create for ourselves. Part II (in my opinion) could be likened to taking stock of oneself and realizing there are more opportunities to escape than you may have initially thought — revealed through a tour of Ego, Super Ego, and Id. What’s more? the internal lessons are tied to external ones — in the context of building start-ups (but, you can probably substitute Start-Up with almost any large endeavor). Going all in on the analogy: Part III is where the prisoner, having taken stock of everything, now plans the escape, and Part IV is the finale.

While the first 3 parts give you perspective on the problem, and the “mechanics” associated with possible solutions, Part IV comes with five prescriptions to help transform yourself into an image of resilience. In a lesser book, you would just get the five prescriptions with a smattering of case studies; here you get the context necessary to view those prescriptions as Named Things for what you will start to conclude on your own.

In other words, the first three parts bring you to a place where you might be able to predict what is generally prescripted (without being able to fully articulate it)… and then in Part IV these giant ideas are distilled into the kind of solution that might just fit in your pocket.

In the context of mental heath this is an epic read — especially for people that shy away from that sort of thing. Also, the cover of the book is pretty awesome. 🙂