I also enjoyed Jeff Bussgang’s article In VC deals, Price Doesn’t Matter – But the “Promote” Does.  It is a great add-on to my previous entry entitled Negotiating Term Sheets:  Should Entrepreneurs Focus on Valuation or Everything Else?  Jeff proffers a new term he calls the “promote,” in an effort to communicate the real value behind a deal and to take the focus off of pre-money valuation or post-money ownership.  It’s worth the read.

Finally, I thought David Feinleib’s article entitled When You Are the Product had some thoughful bearing on my previous entry Venture Conference Presentations.  He differentiates between pitching a customer (where you focus on the product you are selling) versus pitching an investor (where the focus is on selling yourself (and your company, market opportunity, team, model, etc.)).  One of my favorit points he makes is that it’s easy to forget that investors aren’t buying your product, they are buying a piece of your company.  So try and focus on the latter when you are pitching investors.

‘Super Angels’ Shake Up Venture Capital (Business Week)- this one is centered around one of our hometown greats, Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital).  He is very insightful.  I believe in his current model.

Nothing Ventured (The Deal Magazine)- this one is written by two more hometown VCs, Sherrill Neff and Jessica Hou (Quaker BioVentures).

Do Web Entrepreneurs Still Need Venture Capitalists? (NY Times) - my personal answer to this question is ‘yes’ (see the article about Josh Kopelman above).  Just because some entrepreneurs have chosen to make good “lifestyle” money off of developing apps for the iPhone doesn’t mean that VCs are no longer needed for web plays.  I’d argue that the app development model, done on a lifestyle basis, doesn’t fit the VC model anyhow. 

Investors Pay Business Plans Little Heed, Study Finds (NY Times)- I think this article over-generalizes a partial truth – that VCs don’t necessarily hang their proverbial hats on an entrepreneur’s business plan.  Of course, there’s more factors than just a business plan that go into deciding whether or not to back a company.  Read the article above about Josh Kopelman where he states “There’s one thing I’ve learned about entrepreneurs’ business plans . . . Every one is wrong.”  Let’s face it, it’s hard to predict the future, and to create projections for a company that may have no revenue.  That being said, writing a business plan is still helpful and this article gives some good examples why.