Notes from Vinod Khosla (Sun) talk 4/4/2012 – Rocket-Space.com
Khosla Ventures - http://www.khoslaventures.com/
Fail=
-way to iterate to the right answer
-as long as not major consequences
-adjust as you discover
At what moment do you say not going to work:
-most of the time it’s because they decided on a path and stuck with it. failed on how, maybe need different tactics.
Lot’s tried facebook before, where they failed
-Vision, iterate as often as you can to get to your vision. ”ultimate surf travel resource”. Try different way there.
People can solve most problems.
Necessity is ultimiate drive,.
Get creative when life depends on it…
If market right, and people right. Plan doesn’t matter…
“Sometimes it’s a disadvantage to have a plan”
What i get out of a plan, but the quality of thinking. Use the plan to judge the entrepreneur.
Never looked at rate of return calculation.
Plans are important:
1) quality of thinking
2) see if looked at risk in the space
If you don’t question yourself and plan, wrong type of entreprenuer.
Help entr. to ask hard questions, challenge them.
BOARD MEMBERS/MEETINGS
Seldom attends board member meetings, waste of time. you can’t just report. What are the 1, 2, 3 most important questions until next phase and brainstorm around them.
Boards shouldn’t work on things. VC come in 4-6weeks, don’t know enought about what your doing.
-don’t know all the intracacies that you do.
-They should ask you hard questions, push the thinking, but leave the decision up to the entreprenuer.
VC”S has nothing to do with money. Should help them to build a bigger better company. Extend the thinking and range of the entr. The SOURCE of the money is more important.
Jack Dorsey went with them because always pushing him think, to characterize risk before running into them.
What power do these entreprenuers have? Tough going around to VC’s.
As entr. hard to know what you don’t know and know what you don’t know.
-stuff they figure out they don’t know, hardest part is to decide what advice to follow.
-Who do you ask? Who’s opinion on what topic? The most important thing is determine who’s opinion to take…
Ask 2-3 people (diff background people), get diff. answers and determine best answers.
Gene pool engineering: look at the papers on site.
How do you engineer the gene pool to maximize oportunities and minimize the impact risk. Force to look at opportunities and risk.
Hire into that risk, what companies worked on solving those risk.
(What are our risk?)
What if other companies in space:
Awesome people
Different value proposition
Better User acquisition strategy
“Fast follower”
Dynamic of questioning is essential.
If visible failures you will
More experiments, more ideas can come to life.
What about High demand for engineers:
Vinod was asked to sit down with a candidate as favor to portfolio company. Helps bring talent in.
“Don’t make same mistakes twice, just find new ones to make”
Most people as screw up get more conservative…
Get more experienced, less experimental they get…natural.
Hard to find the right people to do this right…
Passion for a vision!
Facebook: with the IPO open up angel investors. people will go out and chase passion. Finally do something they enjoy.
VC’S make decisions based off:
3 to 4 things they fall in love in.
They tell partners”Here’s what I liked about it.”
Why should you invest?
These reasons will result in a big company.
Address the reasons “why they won’t invest” (here’s the risk)
Greed and Fear (losing)
Your Greed:
Your Fear:
Are you realistic? are you naive?
Investors don’t like hype.
90% brain plan why right, not wrong…
practical genious book
At what point do you bring in a ceo?
Pros vs Cons: as founder lots of ideas. Missing the Process… ( I am missing the processes)
Dynamic of challenging all your assumptions (lean start up)
(Strengths: Strategy and Product)
Managed conflict is ok, need biases
Startup:
Only the paranoid survive- Book http://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-Grove/dp/0385482582
Paranoa and vision and optimism= skitzofrantic….
What are all the things that can go wrong…whats the best thing.
Job of founders not about building company, but managing risk… when hire people it add’s risk. When add features, slows you down to risk. Everything you do reduces vs increases risk. (Minimal viable product=big fan of this.
