Book Review: Mastering the VC Game by Jeff Bussgang

As a young entrepreneur, it’s not easy to understand how venture capital really works. There are tons of horror stories that spread through the community like urban legends and phrases like “Term sheets” and “Down Rounds” can sound foreign.  Amidst all of these questions is an aura of uncertainty about how the whole system really works. Fortunately, there’s Jeff Bussgang’s book, Mastering the VC Game to help. 

This book should be a must read for any young entrepreneur who thinks they may ever want funding. It’s that good. Here’s a few reasons I love the book:

It Answers My Questions:

For a long time, I’ve had a million different questions about how it all works from start to finish and why certain aspects of the investment process are they way they are.  In Mastering the VC Game, Jeff breaks it all down in simple terms that have immeasurably raised my understanding how it all works. He’s also fair to both entrepreneurs and VCs alike, in explaining on how varying motivations can lead to all those conflicts and horror stores we hear about.

Thanks to this book, I now have a basic framework and understanding to build off of should I ever pursue funding.  I thought I was going to have to go to a ton of events about funding to understand venture financing, but this book is much clearer than putting together piecemeal information from events.

Local Examples:

Having spent the majority of his professional career in the Massachusetts area has led to the examples Jeff uses being from around here too. I really enjoyed hearing the full story of Eric Paley and Brontes (it wasn’t quite the overnight success story I’d heard) and also Constant Contact, an industry juggernaut now, who was on the ropes in their early days. 

The Cultural Revolutionaries all agreed we need to be louder. What better way than through great books that everyone can read? We already have HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing climbing the charts, and hopefully Jeff’s book will follow them. The local examples in the book will hopefully remind people of the great companies that can come out of Boston.

It Helps You Avoid First Timer Mistakes:

The first time you do anything, you generally make a lot of mistakes. You don’t know what you don’t know.  Hindsight is 20/20 and luckily Jeff shares his vision clearly. He’s very explicit in what to look out for and explaining the different motivations of those involved in a venture-backed startup.  He believes in this so much, he gave a very early copy to a local first time entrepreneur when they were seeking investment from his VC firm.  That says a lot about Jeff's character and the quality of this book.

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If you take away only one thing from this book, it needs to be: understand and work to align the motivations of all board members.  It is when motivations get out of line (or start out that way), that conflict and company issues arise. Your probability of success is infinitely greater when you have everyone working to the same goals.

This book is a must read that I will definitely come back to when I’m looking for funding in the future. I highly recommend it whether you’re raising money now or just want to understand how investment works.  And if you’re still not sure, Jeff has posted the first 40 Pages on his site for free, so go check it out.

What are you waiting for? Go Master the VC Game.