The VC's Customer (continued)

Fred Wilson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:12:49 -0400

About four years, I wrote a post on this blog asserting that the VC's customer is the entrepreneur. I wrote:

The entrepreneur is the customer and the LP is the shareholder. That's
the only way to think about the venture capital business that makes
sense to me.

And then I went on to explain why that is the right way to think about the VC business.

I am revisiting that post today because I love what Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz had to say about their new firm in the announcement on Marc's blog yesterday. They laid out eight core values/organizing principles of the Andreessen Horowitz venture firm in that post. And number three is:

A technology startup is all about the entrepreneurial team and their
vision. Our job as venture capitalists is primarily to support
entrepreneurs by helping them build great companies around their ideas.

That's right. Our job is to support the entrepreneurs. You got that right Marc and Ben. The VC industry is changing. New firms with new values are sprouting up replacing older firms who saw themselves in different lights.

I'll say it again. The venture industry is not broken, but some of the participants in it are.