同時，我也可以回報給他們一些東西。富人都想用錢來換取趣味——不然要錢有什么用？當你向下一個重要目標投資時，就算動用的資金不多，你仍然會得到有趣的故事。你可以指著手機上的應用程序說：“做這個程序的人用的是我的資金。”比起擁有一家床墊公司、把制造業(yè)務外包，在宴會上聊起這些事情要有意思得多。

????話雖如此，之前建立的關系也只能讓你走到這里。熟人提供的資金在我的基金里只占10%左右。這一點讓我有點意外。我一直以為熟人支持我的可能性要比陌生人大，但其實并不是所有人都會投資于基金，而且大多數(shù)熟人都只提供了天使投資級別的資金，而且總額也不大。我的基金中，有一半資金來自三個實體，另一半來自47名個人。我需要的是數(shù)額較大的資金，因此，對于我本以為會解囊相助但沒有這樣做的人，讓他們冒冷汗并沒有什么意義。繼續(xù)前進，盡量不要把這些記在心里。

????我得到的最大教訓就是，我在那些“大款”身上耗費了太多時間，這讓我浪費了整整四、五個月。一些重量級投資人很早就找到我說他們感興趣，但我沒能估計出他們提供資金的可能性，也沒能推算出完成募集的時間——就像《銷售秘籍101》（Sales 101）所說的那樣。一位投資者沒能提供資金，另一位在我籌集資金的過程中發(fā)揮了重要作用，但在相當長的一段時間里他都沒準備好做任何實質性工作。五個月后，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己沒多少時間可炫耀了，而且我開始擔心自己的工作看起來毫無進展。于是，我立即陷入了瘋狂狀態(tài)，開始聯(lián)系所有我能想到的人。這完全是一種“全面撒網(wǎng)”行為。我在和別人交談的過程中肯定對每個人都說過“尋找家庭辦公室”這樣的話，甚至跟我的祖母也這么說過——你絕不想不到她去買彩票時會遇到哪些人，而這些人的孫子或孫女沒準又正好干我們這一行。

????我兜售的對象中，超過一半的人為我投了資，原因有三。首先，我總結業(yè)績的時機好的不能再好了。能在First Round Capital完成七項投資是很出色的表現(xiàn)，而且我發(fā)現(xiàn)社交網(wǎng)站Foursquare的時間較早（當時這家網(wǎng)站還只是個好的投資故事）。如果我開始籌集資金的時間晚了一年，F(xiàn)oursquare這個投資故事就將不復存在。如果我提前六個月離開First Round，我就看不到第二筆投資的退出。一筆投資實現(xiàn)退出已屬僥幸，七筆投資中有兩項完成退出應該值得投資者予以關注。

????其次，我確實沒有說大話。或者，用更積極的語言來表達就是，我只說自己知道的事情。這次的投資方式相當接近我在First Round Capital時采用的方法——以牽頭人的身份投資于紐約市處于發(fā)展初期的公司。我不是那種拿出2.5萬美元，隨后發(fā)現(xiàn)自己本可以讓投資對象獲得更多資金的天使投資人。我不打算到硅谷去開展業(yè)務，因為在那里我沒有優(yōu)勢。我也不會一直持股——因為此前我從來沒有在七年時間里一直擔任董事。之所以說我有兩筆投資完成退出是運氣好，是因為投資時間很短；同時，它們也沒有讓我獲得在較長的一段時間里讓投資實現(xiàn)IPO的經(jīng)驗。我從未經(jīng)歷過A輪融資、B輪融資等等環(huán)節(jié)。人們真正需要相信的只是，如果紐約市出現(xiàn)了吸引人的種子階段投資機會，我就應該是為數(shù)不多的潛在參與者之一，而且有可能成為牽頭人。

????I'd be providing them something, too. Wealthy people want to trade money for interestingness -- otherwise what's the point of having money? When you're investing in the next big thing, even if you're not putting a lot of dollars to work, you've got fun stories to tell. People can point to apps on their phone and say, "I funded the people who built this." It's a lot better dinner party conversation than tales from owning a mattress company that outsources the manufacturing.

????That being said, your prior relationships will only take you so far. The people I already knew only accounted for about 10% of the investments in the fund. That was a bit surprising to me. I thought that my network would have been more likely to back me than total strangers, but a) not everyone is a fund investor and b) most of your personal contacts are writing angel-sized checks and they don't amount to a lot. Half my fund came from three entities and the other half came from 47 individuals. You need big checks, so there's no point in sweating the people you thought would have extended themselves but didn't. Move on and try not to keep score too much.

????The biggest lesson learned, and where I wasted a good four or five months, was in spending too much time with the "whales" upfront. I had some large investors who stepped up with their interest early, but I failed to gauge their likelihood and timing for a close--Sales 101. One didn't make it and the other played a big part in my raise, but wasn't ready to do anything formal for quite some time. Five months in, I found myself without much to show for my time and a worry that I wasn't showing any traction. I immediately went into a frenzy, reaching out to every lead I could think of. It was all about filling the top of the funnel. I must have dropped the phrase "looking for family offices" into every conversation I had. I may have even said it to my grandmother. You never know who she might meet at Bingo who has a grandkid in the business.

????Three factors led to being able to close more than half of the people that I pitched. First, the timing of my track record couldn't be better. My seven-company First Round portfolio was strong, and I was early to finding Foursquare (which, at the time, was still a good story). Had I started fundraising a year later, the Foursquare story wouldn't have played out as well. Had I left First Round six months earlier, I wouldn't have had my second exit. One exit could be a fluke, but two out of seven felt like something worth looking at to investors.

????Second, I really wasn't promising all that much--or, to spin it more positively, I stuck to what I knew. I was investing in a way that was quite similar to what I had done at First Round--leading early stage deals in NYC. I wasn't an angel who was putting $25k into deals that was now suggesting I could lead them with a bigger fund. I wasn't trying to play in the Valley, where I didn't have an advantage. I also wasn't following on--because sitting on boards for seven years wasn't what I had done either. My two exits were lucky in that they were fast, but they also didn't give me the experience of leading an investment to an IPO over a long period of time. Doing Series A's, B's, etc. simply wasn't in my experience. All you really had to believe was that if there were interesting seed opportunities coming out of NYC, that I was on the short list of folks would be in the flow and have opportunity to lead them.