Invest in the people, not the idea

This story is from Steve Blank's terrific blog:

Before we closed [E.piphany's] Series A..., I had called on Mohr, Davidow Ventures, the firm which had funded my last company, Rocket Science. The senior partner at the time was Bill Davidow, a marketing legend and a hero of mine who had also funded other Enterprise software companies. I went in and pitched Bill the idea about how to automate the marketing domain. He gave me 15 minutes, then as politely as he could do it, walked me out the door and said, “Stupidest idea I ever heard, Steve. Enterprise software means across the Enterprise. Marketing is just one very small department.” As he was walking me out, I remember as I physically crossed the threshold of the door that: A. He was right, and B. I figured out how to solve the problem of making our product useful across the entire enterprise. So E.piphany went from a bad idea to a good idea by being thrown out by a VC who gave me advice that made the company. He has reminded me since, “Sometimes you invest in the idea, but you should always be investing in the people. If I would’ve remembered who you were, I would’ve known you would figure it out.”

"Investing in the people": echoes here of Fred Wilson's story on AirBnB. Also, Davidow's book "Marketing High Technology" is still as relevant as when I first read it as an MBA student in 1990.