How To Get Funded with Dumb Venture Capital Money

Although the below is titled, "How To Start A Creative Agency," it can also work as a guide on how to get funded in Silicon Valley during a period when the Fed is pumping huge amounts of new money into the system.

There are some very smart operators and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, but my guess is that they are limited to probably 15% of all the characters out here. The rest are operators with very bad business plans, funded by people who have come into money but are clueless about business. Aside from nutty business plans, to start with, I would say the greatest failure is in understanding marketing. This should not be surprising, since most of us have been educated by professors, who have never had to market. The professors are the worst when it comes to understanding marketing. They have taken tests and climbed the academic ladder without having a clue about marketing and its extreme importance in a world where all information is not present to all actors simultaneously. Professors just don't get this. Outside of Mises, Hayek and Kirzner, it is extremely rare to see a correct understanding of marketing expressed in the academic world.

Thus, it is not surprising that arguably the greatest marketers of recent decades did not complete college. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mary Kay Ash, Michael Dell, Walt Disney, Frank Lloyd Wright and Milton Hershey, either never attended college or dropped out. They never were fully exposed to the anti-marketing thinking of academia.

Anyway, when the Fed pumps, the dumb money is out there, follow the below and you are sure to land some of it---just remember to focus on marketing once you get the money.

-RW

(Chart via The Poke)