Great piece in the Boston Globe yesterday by Scott Kirsner: In Venture Capital, a Growing Rift Over Blogs. It’s the best look I’ve seen so far into why some VCs blog and why others pass. Makes some excellent points about the main advantage for VCs — better deal flow — and the main advantages for entrepreneurs — leveling the playing field, including from a geographic standpoint. That latter point is one I’ve written about a lot, and a very real issue for founders not lucky enough to be located in one of the VC hotbeds.
I like the way Kirsner characterizes VC blogging as the "new parity in the world of venture capital."
The article quotes one of the best-known VC bloggers out there, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures in NYC, a guy who’s invested in many Internet and Web 2.0 deals. Here’s an excerpt from the article that quotes Fred:
Venture capitalists who blog say it isn’t just about helping pump up
their firm’s reputation and show how market-savvy they are. Blogging,
writes Wilson via e-mail, is "the best tool for VC investing that I’ve
ever seen, and I’ve been in this business for more than 20 years."
Wilson
says his blog not only helps him meet more start-ups, but it brings him
companies that are "more targeted and more relevant" to the areas he’s
interested in. Wilson also likes it when his readers argue with him or
tell him about companies he might not already know; it’s not unusual
for one of his posts to attract 25 or 30 comments. "You can’t buy that
kind of education," he writes, "and I get it every day for free."
Later in the piece, an opposing viewpoint is put forth:
"My gut says that there’s no correlation between VC blogging and
financial returns," Spark Capital’s (Bijan) Sabet says, noting that blogger
Fred Wilson has done well with his investments – but so has John Doerr
of the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins, who doesn’t blog but has
put money into Amazon, Google, and Intuit.
The trouble with that characterization, however, is that those latter deals were done long before blogging was popular. Granted, it’s hard to argue that big-kahuna KP needs to blog. But there’s a whole universe of newer, younger VCs out there who are finding it benefits them.
IDG Ventures’ Jeff Bussgang adds this great thought:
…as entrepreneurs increasingly maintain blogs of their own, Bussgang
says, "they want to see that the VCs are their peers and are wrestling
with similar issues and thinking through things."
I wonder how many VC bloggers will be at DEMOfall, starting later today? I’m looking forward to talking with them.
What do you think about blogging representing "the new parity in venture capital"? What are your experiences?
I had the pleasure today to sit down over coffee with the founders of a content site for attorneys called Lawyerist, based in downtown Minneapolis: Sam Glover (left in the photo) and Aaron Street. I met Aaron at a recent monthly lunch meeting of Club Entrepreneur, which is run by my colleague Rick Brimacomb. 
And, today, I had the opportunity to meet Sam, whom I learned continues as a practicing attorney as well. What I find so interesting about this content site, in addition to it being founded by attorneys (whom you’d not normally think of as having a bent for publishing or content), is that it actually has a business model, with real revenues, based on a subscription offering it launched in January. It’s attracting some leading contributing writers, as well as a significant amount of traffic for such a early-stage business.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=01c8bac8-d581-4f74-a757-b6675d0d45fc)
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