風投公司披露“內部運營手冊”
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????風險投資行業的結構正在發生巨變，風投公司正從秘密的“老男孩俱樂部”轉變為開放和透明程度都遠勝前者的……嗯，“新男孩俱樂部”。它帶來了正常的工作時間、產品演示活動和公開宣傳，等等。 ????不過，有一點基本保持原狀，那就是投資策略。這里所說的不是關于板塊和階段的泛泛之談，而是風投公司的實質性決策，比如為誰提供資金以及它希望以怎樣的結構進行操作。 ????風投公司Bloomberg Beta正打算改變這樣的局面（同樣值得注意的是，這家公司五名投資者中有兩名女性，所以這條消息也許是惡意中傷）。 ????Bloomberg Beta的業務橫跨整個美國。這家公司于今年早些時候由彭博（Bloomberg LP）出資7500萬美元（4.60億元人民幣）成立。 ????在彭博資金的支持下，Bloomberg Beta正打算徹底改變這種局面。最近，這家公司通過虛擬主機服務供應商GitHub在網上公布了自己的“內部運營手冊”，內容包羅萬象，從如何最好地進行自我推介，到它想了解哪些參考信息，再到它常用的投資條款，幾乎無所不包。 ????Bloomberg Beta負責人羅伊?巴哈特還就此發表了一篇博客，他說： ????從某種程度上，我們受到了彭博初期產品的啟發——它拿到此前受控制的金融數據（債券價格），然后通過大家都能看到的系統把這些數據公布出來。當時，這是一種很大膽的行為。對相當多的人來說，控制這樣的信息就是他們的謀生手段。提高透明度的結果很難預料。把持信息可以讓你處于有利位置。但是，就像我們所認為的那樣，這種靠保密而獲得的優勢越來越象空中樓閣，至少初創型企業界的情況就是這樣。 ????我們開始暗自思量，為什么初創型公司及其投資者往往會把投資條款列為機密信息。我們找不到什么光明正大的理由。我們認為更大程度的共享能讓我們更好地理解初創型公司的融資信息。 ????大家可以去通讀那本手冊。我在這里摘錄了特別讓人感興趣的五點（我給它們加了題目，具體內容則摘自手冊） ????1. 公司不搞民主 ????我們的政策是“任何人都能做決定”。是的，你不需要和其他合伙人見面。我們相信最好的創業者和最好的公司正在走向兩個極端。一開始，我們中的一、兩名合伙人可能會對我們最好的投資提出異議。團隊非常善于收集信息和集思廣益，但在決策方面的表現很糟糕。我們信任個人負責制——如果有任何人點頭，那么所有人都要感受到其決策的分量（雖然如此，但我們要求所有人在做決定前將投資事項告知其他人——這樣就能從團隊所提供的意見中獲益，而且這是一個三思而后行的好辦法。） ????2. 你的估值準繩 ????今年初以來，本公司投資對象的增資前價值平均為600萬美元（3681萬元人民幣）（我們計劃不時地更新這個數字，但不會過于頻繁——以免意外泄露任何一筆投資的條款。這個平均數只包括我們作為首批投資人所動用的資金——我們沒辦法按同樣基準來公布我們的后續小額投資）。 ????3. 集中、集中、集中 ????我們更愿意看到在某些初始市場集中取得成功的產品，而不是那些規模變得龐大卻無法在用戶的生活中扮演重要角色的產品。我們看好的產品至少要為一部分用戶提供最重要的服務。 |
????Venture capital is in the midst of a structural sea change, evolving from a secretive old boys club into a much more accessible and transparent... well, new boys club. Office hours, demo days, general solicitation, etc. ????One thing that has generally remained guarded, however, is investment strategy. Not the broad strokes of sector and stage focus, but the nitty-gritty about how a firm makes its decisions on who to fund and how it prefers to structure its deals. ????Bloomberg Beta is looking to change that (also worth noting that two of its five investors are women, so perhaps a cheap shot above). ????The bi-coastal VC firm, which launched earlier this year with a $75 million commitment from Bloomberg LP, ????Bloomberg Beta, a new firm launched earlier this year with the financial backing of Bloomberg LP, is looking to change all that. The firm recently posted its "internal operating manual" online, via GitHub. Included is everything from how to best pitch the firm, what it wants to know from references and its typical investment terms. ????Bloomberg Beta head Roy Bahat also wrote a blog post about the decision,saying: ????In part, we're inspired by what Bloomberg's product did in its earliest days — it took previously-controlled financial data (the prices of bonds) and posted them on a system where everyone could see the same price. At the time, that was daring. Plenty of people made their living by controlling that information. Being transparent is chancy. You can gain advantages by keeping information to yourself. Though, as we thought about it, more and more of those advantages to secrecy — at least in the world of startups — seem like mirages. ????We started asking ourselves why startups and investors generally keep the terms of their investments confidential. We didn't have a great answer. We think that more shared data on funding startups will make us all better at it. ????Again, you can read the whole thing here. But below are five items that were of particular interest (titles are mine, text is theirs): ????1. This is not a democracy ????We have an "anyone can say yes" policy. No, you don't have to meet my other partners. We believe the best entrepreneurs and companies are polarizing. Our best investments might have been, originally, opposed by one or more of our partners. Teams are great at gathering information and surfacing wisdom, but terrible at making decisions. We believe in individual accountability -- if anyone can say yes, then everyone feels the weight of making a decision. (That said, we do require that before anyone says yes they mention the investment to the rest of us -- that way they get the benefit of the team's input, and it's a good way to slow down and think for a second.) ????2. Your valuation benchmark ????The average pre-money valuation of our investments for the year to date in 2013 was $6M. (We intend to update this number from time to time, but not too frequently -- to avoid inadvertently disclosing the terms of any one deal. This average includes only our investments where we were part of the first money into a company -- we could not figure out a way to make our small number of later-stage investments comparable on an apples-to-apples basis). ????3. Focus, focus, focus ????We prefer to see products that are intensely successful in some initial market, over products that grow to large numbers but don't play an important role in the lives of their users. We like for a product to be the most important service to at least some of its users. |
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