What Were They Thinking?

C H A P T E R 19

Refuse to Lose

Persistence Pays

AT THE CLOSING DINNER for the sale of a company on whose board I sat, a venture capitalist friend commented to another VC that he had passed on an investment opportunity in a human capital software company, a decision that he now regretted. He noted that the company sold what appeared to be a poor product with a bad record of sales momentum into a very competitive and difficult market space, but the firm had succeeded in spite of all of that because of its management. Of course management matters. But the aphorism that you are better off betting on a good team in a poor market than an ineffective team in a great market, while valid, is too broad. Rather, the specific lesson is to be found in what ...