Secrets of Sand Hill Road is an exciting one for 10x entrepreneurs who want to be better prepared for their interactions with venture investors.

Scott Kupor, a managing partner at US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, unlocks the proverbial Pandora’s box of venture capital investing and explains how venture capital firms are structured, what drives their performance and how they make investment decisions. Throughout the book Kupor shares some of the investment philosophies that have made Andreessen Horowitz one of the most successful firms in Silicon Valley.

Kupor is a lawyer turned entrepreneur turned venture capitalist and has a unique perspective and colourful stories to share. You will learn how to get the best deal, make the most of VC, and why an entrepreneur with storytelling skills has a higher success rate. Find out how VCs think and how they decide where to invest their money. Kupor and his peers funded companies like Airbnb, Pinterest and Slack.

He stresses that investing in early-stage companies is very much about backing the right entrepreneurs who are providing an “aspirin-like solution” in a market that is big enough to produce an outsized return on investment. He also believes that it is important for a VC to have some initial conviction about the product-market-fit and founder-market-fit in an investment proposal.

Kupor’s message is for entrepreneurs to do their homework before they embark on a fundraise to understand the incentive structures of prospective investment partners (particularly venture capital). This will give you an overview of how to successfully deliver an investor presentation (pitch), it lays out term sheet basics, and offers insights on how to manage the “marriage” with venture capital partners once you form that relationship.

Sead is available from Loot for R305, Exclusive Books for R375 and Takealot for R435.crets of Sand Hill Ro

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