Real Business

Real Business columnist and Huckleberry Ventures founder Matthew Crowe gives us his predictions for the evolution of the venture-capital industry.

This week I was sitting down with the founder of MinuteBids, a website which allows property managers to submit bid requests to commercial grounds maintenance firms for work such as lawn care, snow removal, and the like.

What sets apart the successful men from the boys, and women from the girls? One simple thing: execution.

Venture capital is frequently portrayed as the “superhero” behind the success stories of Google, Yahoo, eBay, Facebook and other internet companies that today are now worth billions. But what about all of the other failures? What about all of the companies that never went anywhere, had crazy valuations, and were nothing but giant flops?

Weren't the last few years great? Everyone got accustomed to easy money, the streets were paved with investor gold. But those days are over now. And the reality is you don’t need all sorts of money to build a company today. You can do it on the cheap.

There's a lot of advice out there for entrepreneurs: do this; don't do that. But I believe that there are two core maxims to live by if you want to succeed. Here they are...

For many years there has been a great degree of mystery and allure around the whole venture capital industry. I never really understood how a VC firm went about raising a fund, securing LPs; I frankly didn't understand the whole process. Now that I have first-hand experience in the dark art of raising a fund, I thought I would give a little glimpse under the kimono as to how a VC goes about these things, even during a down and challenging economy.

Inspiration comes from the strangest things. Last week I was having a conversation with Joanna Van Vleck, founder of a rockin' new company called The Trunk Club. It’s the States' hottest new Web 2.0 business: an online  clothes shop for men with expert style advice thrown in. It's catching on like wildfire. With this rapid growth and notoriety comes a need for risk capital of the best kind – venture capital. And you wouldn't believe how similar the venture capital process is to another risky enterprise: dating.

Our venture capitalist hits Hollywood and discovers a great new business.