Planning for Venture Capital

Getting venture capital is not easy as it’s often a case of being lucky, or knowing the right people. However, you need basic planning to get into the game. 

To ask for funds, a game plan or budgeting proposal is essential.
Incubators were a fad for a time, for very early stage venture funding. They proved a flop in the past. Incubators required lots of hand-holding for entrepreneurs. The problem: There were too many students and teachers often had no ability at the required levels. The eventual dot com bubble showed how futile that effort was.

Angel capital is now used for early-stage startups, Classic venture capital is for the level after you generally have some vestige of business operations.
Getting VC funds is usually a kind of lottery, should you have no connections. Those who get funds generally have gotten funds for earlier ventures.

There is a good reason why VC funding is so haphazard. Most VC “experts” actually haven’t the foggiest idea of which entrepreneurs to select and fund. Those VCs who have made big money were often merely lucky; they also picked lots of losers.

The payoff for VCs is generally the ability to sell stock in the venture to others, even when there are no profits to be made. Some deals have been referred to as legalized Ponzi schemes. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter.)