VC Cliche of the Week

I don't have the inspiration this morning so I am going to turn this post over to the readers.

Please post your favorite VC cliches in the comments section and I'll bring them up to the front page.
--------
Thanks everyone! I may reblog some of these.  Go to the comments to get the explanations for them.

"There's no there there" - Charlie

"skin in the game" - Simon

"shoulder to shoulder" - Simon

"We can move quickly" - Jay Rand

"We're not investing in this space right now" - Charlie Crystle

"You're too early for us" - Derek Scruggs

"We DO seed stage investments" (when they actually don't) - Simon Veingard

Sustainable competitive advantage - Daniel Nerezov

"Orders of magnitude" - Greg

"Sweat equity." - Joe

We provide more than just capital. - Alistair

"That's management's problem" as opposed to "that's a management problem."  - Tom Evslin

Its not just our money its our contacts - Brian

now tell us what you would do with five times the investment amount - Brian

we're entrepreneurs too - Brian

"They have a good story to tell." - Keith Alioto

"let's wait until we get our guys in there to see where the bodies are buried"  - Keith Alioto

"It's the golden rules.  He who has the gold, makes the rules." - Flint

We have a "hands-on" approach. - Hooman Radfar

This ain't my first Bar-B-Q. - Jackson

It looks good from my house. - Jackson

Someday this war is gonna end. - Jackson

Water on the lectern. - Jackson

We don't have a problem building a bridge, but there's got to be another side. - Johannes Ernst

Friendly Fire - Ken Berger

"How will you reach the beach?" - David Churbuck

"What's your Microsoft (Google)(AOL)play?" - David Churbuck

"Eat what you kill." - David Churbuck

Scalable and repeatable sales process. - Chris Yeh

"bowling alley effect" - Ruchit

What's your "unfair advantage"? - An Entrepreneur

"First mover" - An Entrepreneur

Will the dogs eat the dog food? - Bill Bryant

"Can Microsoft develop this too?" - Caspar

"defensible intellectual property" - Bob Chatham

"this will be a long movie" and "I've seen this movie before" - Toni

"let's drain this swamp" - Toni

"Too much has to go right for you to succeed." - Mark Sigal 

"Who do you look like?" - Mark Sigal

"It's as deadly to be too early as it is to be too late." - Mark Sigal

Deal Rhythm. - Daniel Nerezov

"Value-Added Investor" - James Haft

What's your value add? - David Cavalier

Let's not reinvent the wheel - David Cavalier

We're "value added" investors - David Cavalier

We need smart money in the deal - David Cavalier

Let's see how they block and tackle - David Cavalier

"Forecasting rain is one thing, building an ark is another." - Mike Santer

"In the beginning you need the barbarians." - Mike Santer/John Chambers

"If you don't know your meat, you better know your butcher." - Mike Santer

"There's always more month at the end of the money." - Mike Santer 

"If you are not the lead dog, the scenery never changes." - Mike Santer

"Make dust or eat dust." - Mike Santer

"Second place is still losing." - Mike Santer

"That Company's multiple (earnings or sales) discounts not only the future, but also the hereafter." - Mike Santer

"It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else." - Mike Santer

"You're telling Noah about high water." - Mike Santer

"Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered" - Greg Haslam

"there's a lot of hair on that deal" - Greg Haslam

Comments

[Bill Bryant]

Will the dogs eat the dog food?

[Caspar]

"Can Microsoft develop this too?": actual VC question (by a major Dutch fund, in 1999) and nominee in the category Most Intelligent Question to Ask After Three Weeks of Due Diligence.

[Sure they can, they are no idiots and they happen to have a 5 Billion dollar R&D budget... The real question is: why haven't they done this already? Very likely because they're not going to!]

Turns out they still haven't done so to date. The investment opportunity was acquired at very nice multiples by the world market leader in its segment in the middle of the dot com crisis two years later.

[Bob Chatham]

"defensible intellectual property"

Seems that more people have offensive use of patents in mind these days...

[Toni]

"this will be a long movie" and "I've seen this movie before" (I'm investing but I have no idea how it will turn out/we're headed for trouble)

"let's drain this swamp" (this is a messy marketplace and we will clean it up) - I think this qualifies as both VC and Entrepreneur cliche (you should collect those next if you haven't already!)

[Stan DeVaughn]

A bit OT but a rare, honest VC moment came last spring when I heard a guy tell that he couldn't assess our concept(content management/sharing) because he didn't even know the right questions to ask. Top-tier house, too. I was impressed.

[Mark Sigal]

Three favorites:

1. "Too much has to go right for you to succeed."

Translation: if the success of your business is predicated on securing Cisco as a distribution partner AND convincing enterprises to embrace your proprietary technology and tools, too much has to go right for you to succeed.

2. "Who do you look like?"

Translation: VCs are the ultimate thin slicers so they look to pattern recognition of past companies that have adopted a similar strategy to breakout success.

3. "It's as deadly to be too early as it is to be too late."

Translation: Breakout markets are as much a function of "right time" as "right solution." You would have hated to be Novell in the mid 80s when nobody knew why they needed a network (Novell almost died several times). A few years later, they could have been Microsoft. Timing is everything.

[Daniel Nerezov]

Deal Rhythm.

Starting the relationship, from courting to funding and after investment activity, they say the whole thing has to have a recognizable feel to it.

With pitching, the process needs to be spread out over about 6 months for plenty of consecutive good news and pleasant surprises. That's deal rhythm and the old venture cha-cha.

[james haft]

"Value-Added Investor"

[Dave Cavalier]

What's your value add?

Let's not reinvent the wheel

We're "value added" investors

We need smart money in the deal

Let's see how they block and tackle

[MikeSanter]

A few VC cliches heard over the years:

1.) "Forecasting rain is one thing, building an ark is another." Many can see and dream, but few can organize, manage and lead in a way that brings success.

John Chambers of Cisco also said something related to this about the type of individuals that are required for startups - "In the beginning you need the barbarians."

Also another I've heard that is related to the fact that people are critical to the success of a startup - "If you don't know your meat, you better know your butcher." Used when a VC discusses hiring key executives with an entrepreneur/CEO.

2.) "There's always more month at the end of the money."

A scary sounding phrase when you first read it. But it usually takes more money than entrepreneurs and often, VCs, think it will take.

3.) Three that describe (two vividly) the importance of being a leader in a market area:

"If you are not the lead dog, the scenery never changes."

"Make dust or eat dust."

"Second place is still losing." (I think Larry Ellison says this often.)

4.) "That Company's multiple (earnings or sales) discounts not only the future, but also the hereafter." Used by some VC's to deflate an entrepreneur's comparison of his/her company to a public Company in the same market.

5.) "It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else." Venture capital is risky and failure is a big part of being a VC. Even with all the due diligence and spending time with management, competitors and customers - an investment doesn't always turn out the way a VC expects - and sometimes this realization happens quickly.

6.) "You're telling Noah about high water." Not so much a VC cliche - but rather one said by an entrepreneur when pitching to a VC. Usually heard when the VC begins to understand the pitch and makes a comment to the entrepreneur about the idea citing a problem/pain that the VC has exprerienced or identified.

[Greg Haslam]

"Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered"

"there's a lot of hair on that deal"

[W Wong]

Cliche: "Don't believe your own bullshit"

Learn to look in the mirror every once in awhile.

[Rob MacMillan]

most inappropriate VC cliche /conversation stopper I ever heard: When we were looking to fund a video sign on the top of the Conde Nast building, explaining that we were encountering the "you're too early" syndrome, and were going to have to get it funded for a while before people "got it" enough to make real money, the 25 yr old VC associate interupts: "so what you're saying is we're going to have to put it in soft and wait to get hard."

[Brian Horey]

"Bet on the jockey not the horse"

The quality of the management team in a deal is more important to its success than the quality of the business or industry in which the company operates.

[laura]

I don't no if all of those qualify as cliches. I've only heard a few of them, so they sound pretty original to me.

"There's no there there" is a quote from Gertrude Stein in reference to her return to her childhood home of Oakland, CA. I didn't realize it was so widely known.

[Marc Nathan]

It might be a liguisitic anomaly specific to Texas (Like "Coke, soda or pop"), but I tend to say: "It's not our first RODEO" instead of "It's not our first BBQ".

[Damon Z]

Thanks for sharing.I just wrote a post on similar cliches or buzzwords. Apparently, there is enough material to write a book :)

[Steve Fisher]

My favorite from raising money is the following conundrum:
VC: "We invest in those companies who are focused".
Me: We are extremely focused on delivering this solution to this market.

Not five minutes later....

VC: "So tell me 4 or 5 markets would sell this too."

Me: "I thought you wanted us to be focused?".

VC: "Sure, but we want to make sure you can 'scale'".

Me: "You mean in case we fail and our focus is not the right one?"

VC: "Well, yes".

Me: "Great. Now where were we?"

VC: "We were talking about focus."

Me: "Yeah, kind of ironic, isn't it?"