The VC/Entrepreneur gap.

As much as people like to think of life being about the good guys and bad guys. It's really not. It's about disposition and interests. Sometimes those interests are aligned, sometimes they aren't, sometimes they are for different reasons, sometimes they aren't for a the same reasons. Bridging that gap is where art meets science for balance.

VC says: give me an entrepreneur with a revolutionary product, business model, low cash burn, proven team, defensibility, and a shot at a 10X return.

Entrepreneur says: give me a venture guy that's going to support me and my vision, stay out of my way, nurture my deal, and hold up when the shit hits the fan.

For it all to work both parties need to bend a little, but not too much.

-If VC bends too much in the entrepreneur favor, he looks soft to his partners, and by the way his limited partners don't invest in him to be nice. If he doesn't bend enough, expectations can become unrealistic and an unmanageable gap is created with the entrepreneur, spelling a bad recipe.

-If the entrepreneur bends too much, he is more driven to optics with his VC and makes decisions for the wrong reasons, just to survive. He then struggles to drag the VC back into his vision. Before too long the pressure cooker builds, also spelling a bad recipe and a target on the back.

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None of this is black and white; it can't be. It's all about the dance in the grey area. Knowing this, and even acknowledging it on the front end helps down the stretch. If it's not acknowledged early enough, you're starring at a near self-fulfilling prophecy.

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