A Venture SLA

There is an opportunity for a new VC Firm to brand itself. Recent brands in Venture Capital arose from transparency and founder-friendliness. YCombinator gives new, young, technical talent an entry into Silicon Valley. 500 Startups does it globally. Fred Wilson blogs the business. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz back Founders to be Public Company CEOs. Ron Conway tirelessly connects his investments to his huge personal network. AngelList gives away investor and talent introductions for free. Founders Fund explicitly cashes out Founders. First Round Capital builds and operates an internal platform. Brad Feld, Mark Suster, Floodgate, Felicis, Freestyle, Softech, Harrison Metal, Baseline all have transparent, founder-friendly philosophies.

That’s not how most VCs work. Imagine if a young entrepreneur were to walk into a VC firm and say:

“We help our customers but don’t tell them exactly how. Our core product is a commodity, yet we don’t disclose pricing. Even when we do, there are substantial hidden costs. It has to be bought in bulk, more than they want. We can take months to onboard a customer. We reject most of them but don’t actually give them a straight answer. They don’t get dedicated support. They don’t get to choose or replace their representative. We don’t commit to serve them in the future. We have hundreds of competitors with the same strategy. Now where’s my check?”

Not even the DMV could get away with this. It’s only possible when the supplier has power over the buyer. As companies get cheaper to build, that power is eroding. Most great VC firms know this, and have built reputations to counter much of the above. That’s what “smart money” means.

But there’s the opening. No one quantifies it or promises it. A few are beginning to – Passion Capital has a Termsheet in Plain English. The accelerators of course do this.

But where’s the venture capital with a strict, quantified promise? A Service Level Agreement?

Imagine this pitch:

“Hello, we’re Founder Friendly Capital. We

• Give you a quick and clear answer. 3 meetings, 2 weeks, yes or no.
• Sign up to a plain-English, Founder-Friendly Termsheet. We pay our own legal costs.
• 1x Liquidation Preference, no veto on Arms Length transactions. Four weeks to decide. No one-way NDAs.
• We’ll always do our pro-rata in the future or sell you back our stake.
• Will never bring in an outside CEO without at least 50% Founder consent.
• You’ll get access to the following resources. X hours of our recruiter time. Access to Y network. Office hours with your Partner.
• Board Seat above $X, Board Observer below that, no Board Control
• No Option Pool Shuffle – the Pre-Money is the true Pre-Money
• Minimum investment amount is $__; Minimum ownership percentage is __%
• Choose your Partner – don’t be embarrassed to ask
• 10% of the Round can be used for Founder Liquidity …”

Change the numbers. Change the terms. It’s the transparency that matters. Instead of leaving every option open and wiggle room on everything, make hard choices up front. A Venture Capital Firm that voluntarily constrains itself will be viewed as Founder Friendly, Smart Money, and will never be short of opportunity.