Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Using Blogs To Dispense Venture Capital

Posted by timothy on from the two-birds-with-one-buzzword dept.

prostoalex writes "The New York Times describes how Tim Draper, a founder of Draper Fisher Juvetson venture capital firm, is trying out a new approach to finding the next entrepreneurial superstars. In his Web log (which NYTimes mysteriously never links to, but it's on AlwaysOn-Network), Draper asks the readers to leave the comments with their billion-dollar ideas. The winners of this pitch were selected recently, and just reading the comments with innovative ideas is quite interesting."

3 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Well, that's how it used to work. by stoneymonster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I personally witnessed $300 million of VC money come to naught. And our product worked. Even a good idea which is completely implemented is no guarantee of success. If giving money out based on slideware alone is alive and well, then the bubble never really burst. -C

  2. Re:Intellectual Property Theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a classic scam pulled by venture capitalists. They have been known to take great ideas from presentations by companies that are courting their financing and give the ideas to companies already in the stable. I personally wouldn't trust this blog idea further than I could drop kick it.

  3. Re:Presentation, Presentation, Presentation... by MrAndrews · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I have an article I wrote a whole back dealing with this concept of the "idea men" not being able to execute their own innovations properly. The one thing that a lot of former dotcom execs told me was that they wish they'd sold out soon before they got the big company with all the programmers and Coke machines, because the biggest lesson they learned was that they didn't know how to run a business as well as they knew how to come up with great starter ideas.

    I think this blog approach - despite the fact that it's horribly risky for people with good concepts - is closer to the ideal. Find the talent out there, get them to give their baby a kickstart, and then (likely) buy it away from them to make it really successful. People need to see where they fit into the bigger picture, and not try and be in every shot.

    I should update that article sometime... hmm...

    --
    The world's only surviving livewriter.