Playing traffic cop is one of the highest value adds for an investor. It's more effective (and often more welcome) than direct advice.
Kent Goldman yesterday, in a private email thread about managing conflicts, with his permission.
Two years in, I keep pushing to do my weird, proto-job better. I publish VC idiot tests to save everyone time, say no to product demos, send group bizdev emails (about which I will also post) that bring unexpected synergies, and focus on very small industry segments because I need to offer sector expertise to add enough value. I also need to make rain across geographies on behalf of all the founders I support. For that, Ken’s “traffic cop” is exactly right, plus I need a lot of traffic.
To that end, I’m adding Group Meals (#hattip evan @ldvcapital) to my standard kit and holding them as often as I can when on the road. Andy Lau and I just held one in Hong Kong on Thursday. We had Floship, Orrick, DesignJar, Shopline, Mindworks Ventures, Nosh.hk, and maidan.hk. Afterwards, I trafficked out the right introductions in an group bizdev email to all the relevant parties -- ones at the lunch, in California, and in Japan.
I did a dinner in LA last month focused on Jessica Toth of Broisse, and a few months before that also in LA focused on George Cambanis. I’ll be in NYC next week for the first time in a while, but the LDV Summit will be all-consuming -- you should go too. The next one(s) I’ll probably do will be in Tokyo the last couple days of June; Hong Kong again early in July; Shenzen early in July; and/or Sydney in late July.
NB: While our views on portfolio conflicts are similar, Kent’s and my implementation is radically different. I explicitly seek out conflicts and stack them up like Legos, offering disclosure to the exclusion of seeking permission. I’m working to be an unavoidable source of information in my market segments. He’s traditional to the point of white-glove, in a way I admire but can’t afford to emulate. It’s worth noting that Kent’s a real VC with two funds under management, and I’m a hack who makes some money on advisory stock and pumps it into LP positions in support of people like Kent.