New VC blogger: Seeing Both Sides

Jeff Bussang, a General Partner with IDG Ventures in Boston, recently started a blog. Jeff is a former entrepreneur, and therefore can provide a point of view encompassing...both sides. His objectives:

I was inspired to start this blog for many reasons, but the most important one is to help entrepreneurs.  During my ten years as an executive at start-ups (such as Upromise and Open Market), I often viewed the venture capital business as a black art.  Now that I've had a few years to practice that black art, I hope to help demystify it for other entrepreneurs.

Like most experiments, I will start this one off small and see where it leads.  If this blog can help both educate and entertain, it will have served its purpose.

In a few posts, he has provided useful answers to a few questions that many entrepreneurs tend to wonder about:

• Should I go with a small angel round or a VC series A, and what are the economics (here)
• When is a good time to raise VC money, and to do what (here)
• What is the typical compensation package (salary, bonus, equity) for key startup positions (here)

With the usual caveat that these answers will vary from one deal to the next, they provide a good basis. I would however be careful with his statement that "patents don't matter", because once again it depends on your field and how your potential acquirer will value your IP.

And finally, he makes an interesting analysis (be sure to check the comments as well) as to why Boston has not had any hit in the consumer Internet space.

Welcome Jeff! And turn those trackbacks on.