风投基金首次募资实战宝典

最后一点是联合投资的机会，这也是让天使投资人参与其中的关键因素之一。说实话，投资于一只基金有点儿乏味。还记得趣味对富人来说有多重要吗？把自己的钱交给别人打理会让他们感到兴奋——特别是把资金用于风投这样令人激动而又尖端的资产。如果打算从个人投资者那里筹集资金，你就得找到让他们入伙的办法。为了让投资变得更有意思，我采取的办法是过度沟通以及分享我的投资进展。实际上，所有的投资者不仅能定期收到我的消息，我还为他们建立了一个有限合伙人组，这样他们就能相互交流，分享其他机会和行业新闻。这些投资者在我举办的年会上都有机会和更多投资对象沟通。随后，他们为我的基金提供的资金数额最终达到了近200万美元。要想办法让那些能够鼓舞人心的创始人出现在你的有限合伙人面前。

    实际情况证明，联合投资对人们有吸引力。我介入的时间很早，足以让我和所有希望紧随我之后介入的天使投资人分享这些机会。如果你能为别人呈上一项精挑细选而且无费用无利息的投资，你在有限合伙人领域就有了一个永远的朋友。幸运的是，我有机会让一部分最大的投资者参与到了一些业绩最好的投资之中，比如手机软件开发商Tinybop、家用安保设备制造商Canary和3D打印软件开发商Floored。

    最后，这是一条漫长的路，但它非常值得，特别是考虑到它恰恰让我到达了自己的目的地。就好像有人一想到管理风投基金和成为风投人士就激动不已，但实际上并没有花一点时间来真正评估一下这是不是他们想要的生活。

    人必须有自知之明。我知道自己不是企业家。我知道我不想建立一家大公司，也不想雇佣许多员工。我知道，和大公司相比我的投资回报并不起眼——要等到投资实现收益，而且总是要扣除成本。由此赚到的钱不足以让我买下纽约大都会棒球队，但和杰出的创始人一起工作让我激动不已，有这么优秀的支持者让我感到庆幸。我不太在乎赚钱多少。我在乎的是人，是创造力和灵感。我在乎的是纽约，我为布鲁克林感到骄傲。加油，布鲁克林篮网队！（财富中文网）

    查理·奥唐奈是风投公司Brooklyn Bridge Ventures的负责人，在纽约市从事极早期投资。他定期在博客网站This is going to be BIG!上发表文章。

    译者：Charlie

    Lastly, and this was a key factor for getting angel investors on board, was the opportunity for co-investing. Investing in a fund, to be honest, is kind of boring. Remember how important interestingness was to the wealthy? Who gets excited about handing their money to someone else--especially in an inspiring and cutting edge asset class like venture capital? If you're going to raise from individuals, you need to find ways of bringing them into the fold. I try to make it more interesting by being overly communicative and sharing my deal flow. In fact, all my investors not only hear from me regularly, but they're on a group LP list where they can talk to each other, and share other opportunities or industry news. My existing investors topped off the fund to the tune of nearly $2 million at the end after they had an opportunity to interact with more of the companies at my annual meeting. Find a way to get your inspiring founders in front of your LPs.

    Co-investing turned out to be an attractive offer to people. I was getting early enough into deals that I could share these opportunities with any potential angels that wanted to come in side by side. If you can hand someone a vetted stream of no-fee/no-carry deals for them to look at on their own, you've made a friend for life in the LP world. Luckily, some of my best performing deals, like Tinybop, Canary, and Floored, are ones where I was able to bring some of my largest investors in with me side by side.

    In the end, it was a long road, but well worth it--especially given that this is exactly where I want to be. It feels like people get excited about the idea of running a venture fund and being a VC, but don't actually take the time to really evaluate whether it's a life they want.

    You have to know yourself. I know I'm not an entrepreneur. I know I don't want to build a big firm and hire lots of people. I know the pay isn't what it would be compared to a larger firm--until the deals pay off and the carry kicks in anyway. I'm not going to make enough money doing this to buy the Mets, but I'm thrilled that I get to work with great founders and I'm lucky to have such great backers. I don't much care about that. I care about people, creativity, and inspiration. I care about New York and I'm psyched about Brooklyn. Go (Inter)Nets!

    Charlie O'Donnell manages Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, working on very early-stage investments in the New York City area. He blogs regularly at This is going to be BIG!