Tuesday, April 5, 2011

VC Ed Sim reflects on investments he passed over

This post on logging and reflecting on mistakes was originally posted nearly two years ago, but, by coincidence, today VC and blogger Ed Sim published a similar idea - "Reflecting on Passed Investments" - looking back, after the fact, on investments that weren't made. How had they turned out?

Every 3 months I dig through my "passed company" folder to look at what investment opportunities we passed on and why. Inevitably, there are a few companies that are near-misses, but we end up passing on for whatever reason. Did we pass because we didn't think the team was great or because we didn't believe that they could get a product launched? Did we pass because of lack of traction in the beta release or because of concerns on valuation? Looking at my "passed company" folder gives me an opportunity to test our reasons on passing and to see 3 months later if the entrepreneurs could actually execute or prove our concerns wrong.

While many times I find doing this reflection further confirms our reasons for passing, I also find myself from time-to-time sending up a follow up note to check in on these near-misses or doing a quick Google search to see how the company has progressed since our last communication. Inevitably, there will be a few that "got away" and seem to be doing quite well. No one is perfect and looking back every quarter gives me an opportunity to better hone my investing acumen and further refine my understanding on what separates a potential winner from a loser.

Related Post: To learn better, keep and review a mistake log

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