Treskow: Founder experience is helpful for VCs but not essential
Michael Treskow · 20 VC 073: Life Inside Accel Partners with Michael Treskow @ Accel · Sep 21, 2015 · at 4:05
Michael Treskow, an investor at Accel Partners, addresses whether venture capitalists must have prior entrepreneurial experience to be effective investment partners.
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“All else being equal, all incremental experience helps. And so if you can have somebody who has had prior entrepreneurial experience, all else being equal you'd like that, right? And the question is, is more around to what extent that's necessary, right? Because fundamentally as a VC, I am An investor, not an operator, right? And so, so where where I work with companies is, you know, strategic decisions introductions, hiring and being a trusted advisor. And so, it's that what entrepreneurs want from a partner. And so If you get that from an entrepreneurial background, that's great, but ultimately it's slightly different skill sets that you need to run a company versus to invest and sort of have pattern recognition and et cetera. So, you know, the, that's a long winded way of saying that I think it's great to have that. I don't think it's a must have.”
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