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That's part of the title of my book - the rest of which reads, "An
Insider's Guide to Venture Capital."
It's all about how to raise money
from venture capital firms, and then use it wisely, based on my
observations and painful lessons after almost 20 years on the VC side of
the table and a previous 11 as a "consumer" of venture capital.
Rather than wax eloquently about the benefits you might get from
reading it, I'll leave that to others on the web sites where it can be
obtained (Smashwords.com for eBooks and Lulu.com for print). Instead, here is some of what I've learned from the process of writing and publishing my first book.
- Don't throw anything away you've ever written! I was
encouraged to write this book by some friends who had read a number of
my columns over time, and then was crushed to find that some of what I
thought were my best ideas over the last 15 years had gone the way of
the delete key. Since I never considered ever needing those words
again, I created free disk space. Now, there was no way to recreate
whatever magic was captured in those old columns and blog posts. So, if
you even remotely think your words have lasting value, find a nice,
dark archive to hold them forever.
- Of the over 60,000 words I was able to bring back to life, I
was stunned to find that with the benefit of hindsight, some 12,000 of
them were (to put it gently) flat-ass wrong! For those of you who do
find the book worthy of a few of your hard-earned dollars, you'll note
the word count comes in about 48,000. You do the math. Seriously, it
was fascinating to see areas where I was sure I could either predict the
future (always dangerous) or even make sense of the past (should have
been easier). In a number of those cases what looked like trends at the
time turned out to simply be random events. However, since about 80%
of words survived that test of time, I did better than we seem to do
with most of our venture capital investment decisions.
- The next learning was about how remarkably easy it is to
become a published author these days. For example, Smashwords.com took
my Word file and after a few cleansing exercises to make sure its
content could translate into all the popular eBook formats, swallowed
the book whole and returned in minutes with everything done. Within
days, it was available on most of the popular book web sites (still
waiting on Amazon, however). It wasn't quite as simple on Lulu.com for
the print version, since they require you review a full printed proof
before they release it. But still, it was remarkably straightforward.
- Perhaps the highlight was getting the cover art done. Years
ago, I cut my teeth in the advertising industry. So, I knew (or thought
I knew) what professional graphic designs cost. Except I was
apparently a few orders of magnitude off based on today's tools and more
importantly today's cottage industry of book cover designers.
Smashwords provided a list of recommended designers. After looking over their web sites I picked Digital Donna
as having a style I thought would lend itself to my work. I sent her a
draft of the book with a couple of rough ideas for the cover. A day
later, the first cut of the design arrived in my email. Another day and
we'd made a few alterations and it was finished.
When
I've shown people the cover, and asked them what they thought it cost,
the general range is between $250 to $2500. Actual price, $66: $35
for the design, $31 for the licensed images. I think Donna has raised
her prices a little now, but she's still not charging enough!
- Then, came the issue of getting people to know the book
exists. Just like all of you slaving away on iPhone or Android apps,
this is where the rubber meets the rubber cement. With so many budding
authors, now so easily enabled, it is remarkably hard to cut through the
noise. I've emailed and blogged and tweeted, but the best method seems
to be public appearances before appropriate industry groups, or reviews
by others on their blogs. And with increased visibility have come some
surprises.
- Of course, I'm always gratified when someone finds the book
useful. But, I've been more than little taken aback that a few
individuals used the occasion of seeing a VC dare speak the truth out
loud (or at least the truth as I know it) to level a broadside at me, or
at VCs in general. Obviously, there is plenty of angst out there among
entrepreneurs who didn't get funded. Maybe there is a lesson for those
of us on the supply side of the capital table. We seem to have done a
very poor job of explaining why we said "no" in a way that helps the
recipient understand and yet move forward with confidence. Early
chapters in the book try to address that deficiency, but my observation
is emotions out there are just too raw in some cases for the words to
sink in on the first try.
- Finally, I've been delighted by the number of people who have
come forward to point out typos (dammit) or where they thought my points
were helpful, but my wording was not clear. Someday, the second of
edition of the book will be far better than the first, based on their
unsolicited editing work.
For those of you (and you know who you are) with a book itching
to get out of your head and into our hands - it has never been easier.
Start writing!
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