2,000 “no’s” a year
Allegis Capital says no to 2,000 companies a year. Since I was on stage at TechCrunch 50 seeing a bunch of startups, I wanted to have a conversation with one of the top venture capitalists in the world. Here’s the founder of Allegis Capital, Bob Ackerman, who gives me a 34-minute rundown of his view of what’s happening in the capital markets today.
My best question? “How do you earn a no?” After all, his firm says no 2,000 times a year. His answers are fun (that part of the interview starts at about 19 minutes into the video). After the camera was off he told me the best way to earn a no is not to try at all.
If you’re thinking of starting a company you should listen to this video, it’ll help you get your plans ready so you don’t hear “no” when you ask for capital.
I also ask him why, when companies like SmugMug are doing well and haven’t taken venture funds, should I take VC at all to build my company?
Oh, and don’t miss why he turned down Akamai. That’s a hillarious story, starts at about 25 minutes into the video.
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September 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Robert, very much enjoyed the interview and your host, bring more of these! Nice video
September 20th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
“should I take VC at all to build my company?”
It is like getting a lover.
If you run behind the one you want, things will go wrong.
Just get the other one interested in you.
The best is having revenue and profit as a startup company.
Get customers or get enough eyeballs to become profitable.
Then listen to the business proposition a VC has to sell to you.
September 20th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Scoble is there a tuition cost for me to watch this?
Nice work, thank you.
Have you ever thought of making a “best of” so I can get all the talks I may have missed.
September 20th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Rob, would like to follow scobleizer.tv but the podcast is a huge 270MB. (That’s big where I come from on 1.5Mbs internet and 8GB monthly limit). I want to watch on my iPhone (download to Mac then to iPhone) so it doesn’t need to be gi-freakin-normous. I can’t see anything on Fast Company TV about getting a small version.
September 21st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
And the most important piece of advice is to remember that “no” jut means that nothing has changed. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just means you have to keep trying.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 am
[...] year was one for the record books, as Robert “MeatMan” Scoble continued an 8 year run for the “All Media Personality” Cup, and brutally put down [...]
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Just ho-hum trade sales and generic Enterprise offerings…pretty horrible overall market if, those are the yes’es.
The fail-whale resume’s speak for themselves, Gassée’s Apple hell era/Be/Palm burnouts. Lara with irrational-exuberance era SGI. Ackerman with Unisoft, and bubble-era “internet appliance iPhone” InfoGear. Weinman with Interactive Applications.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:56 am
This is one of the best VC interviews. Thank you.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
That was a great video, very enlightening.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
The average programming job is 6 figures in California. You don’t need VC here. You just need weekends and an employee handbook that permits personal projects.
Y Combinator has people come in from the burbs in long lost parts of US on 15k funding for a reason. Nobody local would do it.
I guess if you have a large family to drain your cash, you can’t but you probably shouldn’t be doing a startup in that case anyhow. I always thought I would need VC, but when I moved here to CA, I realized that a normal programming job earns you just as much if not more.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I was unsure about spending 1/2 hour watching this, but this was the BEST 1/2 Hour I’ve spent this week. Thanks. I’ve never met Bob Ackerman, but I consider him a stand up gentleman, VC, and potential partner after watching this interview. After checking TheFunded: http://thefunded.com/funds/show/Allegis+Capital?view=search I’m going to contact him. Thanks again.
me
September 29th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Happy Ramadan to everybody. Why this web site do not have other languages support?