风投缘何重“猪”轻“鸡”

    1） 全身心地投入公司，即便是举家搬迁，辞职或辍学，他们也在所不惜（尽管我个人并不赞同也不鼓励）

    2）为事“坦坦荡荡”，在业界、同行、家人和朋友面前从不遮遮掩掩。即便失败，也是轰轰烈烈。

    3）还未获得巨大的成功，或者并未达到腰缠万贯而不用工作的地步。【90年代中期，我记得我在移动通讯服务商公开市场公司（Open Market）工作时我为自己买了人生的第一套房，我的导师和老板暨公司的首席执行官格里•艾克洪曾表示祝贺并说道：“我希望你要还的房贷金额很高，这样你就无路可退，只能拼命赚钱！”】

    4）很少花时间来培养与公司业务无直接关系的兴趣爱好。创业极其耗费时间、精力，需要一周7天、全天24小时全心投入。养家糊口并保持身体健康已经实属不易。如果企业家有一大堆业余兴趣和爱好，这不是个好消息。我的一位合作伙伴甚至去调查企业家在夏天打高尔夫球的次数（反正这显然是公开的信息，但是我不玩高尔夫，所以也就不知道他是怎么调查出来的），藉此作为衡量企业家对新公司关注程度的晴雨表。

    5）也有一小群罕见的企业家，由于他们天性古怪，不满于现状，尽管已经获得了巨大的成功，他们仍如饥似渴，斗志昂扬。要分辨这种企业家，关键要看他们是否仍是像以前一样事必躬亲（例如，对产品十分痴迷，十分关注公司的财务模式，公司的销售活动总是冲在第一线）。确实，这些企业家很特别。

    因此，你是哪一类，鸡型还是猪型？显然，投资者只会择其一而爱之，而且所涉及的对象不仅仅是创始人，还包括整个团队。所以，组建团队的时候要小心，别雇佣“鸡型”员工，在眼光老辣的投资者看来，聘他们还不如雇佣“猪型”员工。

    杰弗瑞巴斯冈是风投公司Flybridge Capital Partners的普通合伙人。具体信息请参见他的推特@bussgang

    1) Commit to the new company everything they have - even if that means moving their families, quitting their jobs, or even dropping out of their schools (as much as I don't want to condone or encourage this!).

    2) Put themselves "out there" publicly and visibly with the industry, their relationships, family and friends. If the company is a failure, it will not be a quiet one.

    3) Have not yet achieved a mega-success already and/or yet achieved wealth beyond the point of needing to work again. (I remember my mentor and boss at Open Market, CEO Gary Eichhorn, congratulating me when I became a first-time homeowner in the mid-1990s and observed: "I hope you got a large mortgage so that you are locked in and highly motivated to create wealth!").

    4) Participate in a minimal set of outside interests and hobbies that aren't directly related to their business. Starting a company is a consuming, obsessive, 7x24 endeavor. Raising a family and remaining healthy is enough of a battle. When we see entrepreneurs with long lists of hobbies and outside interests, it's a red flag. One of my partners went so far as to look up the number of times an entrepreneur played golf one summer (which apparently is public information somehow, although I'm not a golfer so still don't know how he figured this out) as a barometer for how hard they were applying themselves to their new venture.

    5) There exists a rare breed of entrepreneurs that have already had mega-success are so special and driven that they remain obviously hungry and scrappy. For these entrepreneurs, the key is to watch and see if they're still as hands on as they ever were (e.g., obsessed with the product, knee-deep in the financial model, out in front of the organization in selling). Again, these entrepreneurs are very special.

    So what are you - the chicken or the pig? Investors clearly prefer one model over the other, not just in the founder, but in the entire team. As a result, as you are assembling your start-up team, be careful not to hire chickens. In the eyes of prospective investors, you may find it's even less kosher than hiring pigs.

    Jeffrey Bussgang is general partner at venture capital firm Flybridge Capital Partners. You can follow him on Twitter @bussgang