My buddy Jules Maltz at IVP just started blogging. I'd like to think I had a little to do with this because I bumped into Jules at a Kellogg reunion and told him all about Kenny K. Turns out Jules had been playing around with a blog but had kept it low profile. Sure enough on Tuesday he published this piece on late stage investing. Good advice here.
"5) Clean and Simple: VCs are experts in the “bells and whistles” of term sheets. We love words like participating preferred, cumulative dividends, accreting liquidation preferences, full-ratchet anti-dilution, etc.). While many of these terms do help you “juice” returns, they make the eyes of entrepreneurs glaze over…and in a competitive process, this can be the difference between winning and losing. The smart entrepreneurs at Franchise companies know that they have lots of options and very little time. I’ve seen Fred Wilson talk many times about how he likes to tell an entrepreneur how much he wants to invest and at what valuation, and keeps everything else clean. Investing with clean terms is more fair to entrepreneurs and will help you stand out from the other VCs who like writing long term sheets."
