The LinkedIn Effect in the Venture Capital Community

In our experience, the following key factors profoundly influence the results of many venture capital investments:

• Selection and on-boarding of high quality, high-performance-minded entrepreneurs
• Attracting and retaining the right professional managers at the right time in the emerging growth company’s life cycle
• Quality, speed, and convenience of high value interactions

If you agree, then LinkedIn may be a solid approach to each of these attributes. Here’s how: Selection and on-boarding of highly quality, high-performance-minded entrepreneurs – Get references on potential entrepreneurs from your Relationship Bank. Traditional inquiries as to who used to work with a prospective entrepreneur are time and resource exhaustive. A targeted exploration on the company, geography, and key roles make this search simple. A profile on LinkedIn, as well as insights from past colleagues, can also help you more successfully plan for their selection, assessment, and on-boarding process. Attracting and retaining the right professional managers at the right time – Every emerging growth company goes through a natural life cycle that requires very diverse skill sets of its leaders. Few leaders possess the same focus, tenacity, and the relationships to succeed from zero to $1 million or $5 million in revenue as they do from $500 million to $2 billion-plus. Getting the right executive at the right time can often make or break a company. Recruiters may or may not be able to provide the right fit. Connecting on LinkedIn with highly trusted portfolio or 2 a.m. contacts in your Relationship Bank people who know you and your requirements to a particular company’s hands-on leadership needs, may be very effective in identifying someone with the whole package to lead your portfolio companies. Quality, speed, and convenience of high value interactions – Reverse or backdoor references are just a few clicks away with LinkedIn. And because contact to these pivotal contacts is granted through your Relationship bank, they’re not only more likely to be candid, but will refer you to a broader set of prospective references. Former managers, colleagues, investors, customers, suppliers, and strategic alliances can all provide quality conversations at a fraction of traditional outreach campaigns.