You ever had an idea, which could become a milion-$$$ venture? Of course. Any intelligent entity did (sorry if You didn't).
It was surely some sort of a vision. You saw in front of Your mind's eye a solution or an answer to a popular everyday's problem. Why didn't You try it out? Yeah, right. They would say "freakin artist" or "mad scientist". Better to leave it alone and do Your business than to become an alien. Human communities are weird, indeed. Maybe that's because there are few places like the SF Bay Area or Bangalore, where ideas convert into revenues apparently seamlessly. But there're some pitfalls You should know about, in case You really want to try the game. After all, life is like a big casino, and most of Your janitor-colleagues will hate You for dressing cool for one night and trying the roulette, cause they don't have the balls to sit at the clients' tables. Just do it.
First of all, You'll definitely need a business-plan. Now a newbie question: what's the point in writing business-plans? Well, it's the summary of a particular business idea, You have (in my own words). You do it in order to keep track of Your goals, but first of all, to get a sponsor for Your venture. These sponsors are called Venture Capitalists. For their participation in Your revenues, they'll give You any amount of money they'll regard as useful and promising. If the amount will make sense to You, You sign a contract and have the funds to make Your business vision happen.
But that's theory. If You're active in the ICT sector, You'll most probably have an innovation, You want to sell. Well, if it's a promising innovation, what's the point in letting You do it? I mean, Your business-plan carries all the necessary information for ANYBODY to do it. Sad but true. Your idea gets sold FOR NOTHING by Your sponsors to the nephew of the chairman of the VC-company, who "can do websites like anybody else".
Sometimes, You'll get a bullet-in-your-head-contract to make Your venture generate revenues, and if You miss it, all Your work will legally be confiscated. It's not dotcom. It's a jungle.com (w/ no reference to the actual jungle.com). After such a maneuver, some men in black enter Your company, give You the goodbye letter and demand all the documentation in order to let Mr X, the future CEO, do Your work, and give the VC's a 100% revenue of Your company's capitalization in the upcoming IPO. I mean, You really have to think strategically in order not to burn Your efforts. And most unlucky, Your vision for retirement in Goa (or wherever Your promised land belongs to). But let's get back to these men in black.
There are honorable VC funds and lousy VC bandits. You have to get a clue about the people behind their visiting cards to know, who You're talking to. That's not easy. One way is to check
TheFunded.com for Your potential sponsor and view his rating among other entrepreneurs. That way, You don't risk to be enchanted by the sirens' songs of big money and after signing the contract (written in incomprehensible lawglish), being eaten up to Your bones.
Another way is, as always, doing interviews with Your locals who might have had an experience with these people and searching other web resources for referencing individuals.
These are the Do's. The Don'ts are respectively:
Do not to run into the pitfall of self-persuasion. Dishonest VCs have great consultants, who will pump up Your energy and self-confidence in order to hibernate Your anti-intrusion system, so to say. Their salesman will blow Your vanity and You'll lose track of the facts and figures of Your own venture.
Don't show Your business-plan, You've spent endless sleepless nights with, to anybody, until You don't have the true confidence, that You're respected as a full member of the founding team (including Your consultants and other, financial and technical, staff). Non-Disclosure Agreements are a pathetic joke, except You can hire a multi-million lawyers bureau to make You money out of patent infringements, but that's only true if You already have a patent on Your invention, which is often to costly to register before getting the funds that You need.
True VC funds know the difference between Visionaires and Copycats. The former are we, the people who have the will to make the world a better place. The Latter are these parasites, who have an instinct to steal instead to create, but they have the luck, that their lack of conscience and reputation is recognized by their clients. Basically, if You happen to be the Visionaire, You must be double, triple or better prepared for the hunt than the Copycat. So take time to know Your enemy. More suggestions are laid down straight in Sin Tsu's Art of War, which should be helpful for open-minded strategic people.
Also, the "good" VCs know very well, that the Visionaires are the only guys who will work day and night to grow their idea. The copycats will work until 4pm and shake their head in pretended disbelieve when the company gets busted, because they'll never identify in 100% with the innovation they have to clone. Of course, some of them will get fascinated by the stolen business idea, but after all, they can get fascinated by a dozen of them each and every day, so that's no point in relying on them. Dear VC's, think about this before busting another glorious business-plan, generating Your nephew some more income (that he'll immediately blow on luxurious parties) for destroying the inventor's faith and good will. It's a jungle, and the fat lions don't get the point that by eating ALL the "gnus" they'll end up without anything left, but cannibalism. So again, reflect on that.
I have to get a few hours of sleep now seriously, but I'll be back immediately after finishing some priority tasks. Stay tuned!
Yours sincerely,
Jakub K. aka Kuba
