Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed: Mike Hirshland

by Scott Edward Walker on August 9th, 2013

To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.”  Each week, we share a favorite video of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics.  This week, we present Mike Hirshland, the founder of Resolute Ventures and a very smart investor.

In this interesting interview (courtesy of TechCrunch), Mike shares some solid nuggets for entrepreneurs, including the following:

• The downside of so-called party rounds is that “no one is really accountable – nobody is waking-up in the morning and on their list of worries is ‘how’s company X doing’.”
• Founders are doing a “disservice” to themselves with party rounds because “there is nobody who really is saying ‘this is one of my primary responsibilities’.”
• Valuation is “not a formula” – “it’s a trade-off between an investor’s desire for ownership and a founder’s desire to minimize dilution.”
• “The analysis at the seed stage is a fairly succinct one”: there must be (i) a strong founding team, (ii) going after a real problem and (iii) in a very large market.
• “The one thing you can be certain about is that at the end of the seed stage it’s going to look a lot different than what you were pitched at the beginning.”
• “I’m not a big fan of Boards during the seed stage…. Board meetings are a pretty inefficient use of time.”
• Rather than have Board meetings, seed-stage companies should develop a “routine of monthly check-ins” with their lead investor.
• “There are some discreet areas where an investor can and should be really helpful – around recruiting, certainly around financing, and then a bunch of soundboard-like feedback.”
• “Fundamentally, what the founders need the most is time to build the product.”

I hope you enjoy it.  Cheers, Scott

 

Tags: helping entrepreneurs, Mike Hirshland, party rounds, Resolute Ventures, seed-stage