Analyzing The Analysts

I love Askthevc. It really is one of the best resources on the Web for entrepreneurs about VC (thus the name eh?). Today they had a young VC analyst ask a question, which encompassed what I consider two funny sentences.

1. "I'm good at technology without much development experience"
2. "I am strong on operational metrics without any operational experience"

So I thought I would add some more analysts to the list who I have met along the way (and even been at one time or another) in my work:

1. The Advertising Budget Analyst:

"I am successful at evaluating the appropriateness of advertising production budgets without any advertising production experience"

AKA - "I have a digital camera and friends who work in advertising"

2. The Advertising Creative Analyst:

"I know what makes great advertising creative even though I have never built a brand"

AKA - I watch a lot of TV

3. The Consumer Research Analyst

"I know what people want even though I have no practical experience in qualitative or quantitative research"

AKA - I am a person. I have friends who are people. How hard can it be to figure out what other people want that I don't know?

4. The Marketing Analyst:

"I know if you have positioned your product correctly even though I have never positioned a product in my life"

AKA - It will either sell me or not and let's face it, I am representative of the entire marketplace

5. The Management Consultant

“I can tell you how you need to reorganize your company for greater success even though I have never actually worked at a company or ever had to implement any of my grandiose plans”

AKA - If it works great. If it doesn’t they can bring me back to assess why it didn’t and pay me a whole bunch more money to try it a different way all over again

When is authentic, authentic?

We are currently doing a round of investment. We are looking primarily looking for Angel but many people have questioned my hesitation about taking VC Capital. After all, they are starting to change their previous ways, aren't the sharks they are portrayed to be, and are even starting to invest smaller amounts and taking less shares (well except in Canada where it has to be a min. 2 million dollar deal).

So being the open-minded entrepreneur that i am, i start to investigate. One company website i ventured to (aren't i punny?), was True Ventures. This is some of the copy they have on their website (look on the right hand side under “what it means to you”:

“We don’t like buzzwords. No, we really don’t. Be authentic."

"We work for you.”

Ok, sorry for being such a cynic. I mean they do have a nice picture on their homepage with the women who started meebo so that's a good sign. But the copy. They work for me? I mean, are they going to be my friends too?

What happened to being authentic? I don’t mind if they say, we want a partnership where both parties win (otherwise known in marketing land as the “win win”) but to say they work for me? Should I remind them of that when they give me my walking papers, “Hey, you can’t do that, remember you work for me!”