2,000 “no’s” a year

by on September 20, 2008

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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  • /B.
    Robert, very much enjoyed the interview and your host, bring more of these! Nice video
  • "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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Christopher Coulter
    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.
  • k
    This is one of the best VC interviews. Thank you.
  • That was a great video, very enlightening.
  • Chris
    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.
  • me
    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... I'm going to contact him. Thanks again.

    me
  • Happy Ramadan to everybody. Why this web site do not have other languages support?
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