Venture capitalist, PayPal founder and all-around Silicon Valley iconoclast Peter Thiel brought his usual thought-provoking comments to The Wall Street Journal Innovation Awards dinner Tuesday night, which ended day one of the VentureWire FASTech conference.
In addition to his thoughts on how promising young entrepreneurs should strongly consider not going to college and just creating a start-up instead, to his visions of a libertarian island wonderland, Thiel also offered his thoughts to WSJ interviewer Alan Murray on how start-ups can get the attention of investors like him — if, indeed, there are investors like him.
Check out the video below:
COMMENTARY: Duh..!! I thought that expecting a startups founder to say their company will be the dominant leader in their industry and be around for 25 years, is unrealistic. For me, that's a trick question, totally pie-in-the-sky. Here are my Big Five + 1:
- Large potential market, preferably in the billions.
- Barriers to entry.
- Very compelling value proposition (great idea, valuable IP, trade secrets, no competition, two-year head start, conquered the learning curve, control over scarse resources)
- Experienced management team with previous experience working together within the chosen industry.
- Successful business model via predictable and consistent revenue generation.
- Startup founder should have significant "skin-in-the-game".
Courtesy of an article dated November 9, 2011 appearing in The Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch
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