When to take a smaller piece of a larger pie and Femtocells ... a new wave?

Femtocells have become a hot topic over the past year with the competing forces of cable companies, Internet companies, and now cellular carriers trying to own the home portal. Google’s recent investment in a femto maker stimulated a lot of questions around the space. Femtocells give you cellular coverage at home where most of us don’t get it (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocell)--for the carrier it defers infrastructure spend for better connectivity and higher speed, and offers a home portal where they can sell higher value services. Since VOIP is starting to eat their voice revenue, it’s a good defensive move.

I’ve looked at a few of these companies, at various levels in the value chain. I am told by many local VCs that this is not a market yet, and that everyone who makes a part of a femtocell is expecting to win big, but only the femto makers or the carriers will really win. Other VCs have told me that the component makers will be the winners, which is hard for me to believe despite the JDSU analogy (remember when all they made was HeNe lasers).

A critical problem in femto is network timing and synchronization, and there are three quite different ways to solve this problem. I have seen three really good companies in the component end of this space, but I think two of them need to be put together. We really wanted to invest in this combination and build a killer femto play.

One of the companies has been around for a long time and tried several incarnations of its technology in various markets before femto came along. The VCs had some investment fatigue and we thought a deal could be struck to get the company better capitalized and fund either a put together or a strong standalone company. So history is a good thing, but if a deal has been around a long time, it can get difficult to deal with the history. Expectations get low with fatigue, but when there is a ray of hope the pendulum can swing heavily the other way and expectations get reset to much higher levels than perhaps they should. With history, and many rounds of financing to re-task a company, valuations become a little irrelevant; as a practical matter there is only so much of the company that the VCs can own--in non US deals these numbers get frighteningly high: 80-90%. And as an entrepreneur I wonder why the teams stay in those companies?

In practice what usually happens is the ESOP gets reset, so that new team members can be attracted and old ones retained, and the company is recapitalized for the new plan. With history, founders and original investors feel that much value has been built and valuations should be high, but new investors may look at the deal and feel that since the company has a new plan it’s a new A-round--consequently attracting a much lower valuation. Even in the case where there is revenue from previous attempts, new VCs may suggest that that revenue cease because its defocusing energy from the new “killer app.”

Companies that bootstrap often fall into this trap where they have revenue from several sources making enough to cashflow almost at breakeven, by serving several verticals. VCs tend to see this as scattergun approach, and worry about the team’s ability to focus.

So I really liked this femto deal, the team, even the history because it gave them a unique element of the femto unit, and I could see an ability to build it with some other key elements into not just a femto play but an infrastructure play as well. Unfortunately, I doubt we or any early stage VC will be able to invest in this deal because it can continue based on revenue from the legacy markets with only a little additional funding. The current team is faced with taking a dilutive round to bring in growth capital, or growing organically without dilution. If they land a really big order, they may be able to finance another way.

I don’t know who is right or wrong in this case (history will tell), but from a venture perspective, money is time, and experienced hands to help guide the team and de-risk the business. Looking at a deal when the VC has deep background in the market vertical, and can see a broader, larger opportunity perhaps through M&A, then he expects to get some value attributed to that contribution.

If the company is lucky enough to enter the tornado, a lot more capital will be required and the VCs, new and old, should be happy to dilute in order to bring in more capital to feed growth while the opportunity exists. There is no point for VCs to invest in organic growth and avoid dilution, it's reverse thinking. A strategic M&A can put together the two halves of the killer app (c.f. Light Solutions, my worst and best company … later) to build an opportunity that is perhaps ten times larger, or more critically to create a product that leapfrogs all competitors and secures leadership of a rapidly growing space. How much dilution is that worth?

Unfortunately many companies opt for less dilution and organic growth, but you can’t save yourself to success, you have to spend--so many, many companies find themselves in this limbo where their valuation has outstripped the VC’s ability to invest despite revenue, despite undisputed value--they are in the wrong markets or too diverse, or too much history. Many companies end up in purgatory with enough revenue to survive but not enough to grow and seize the opportunity when it finally presents itself.

I think femto will be a real and exciting market, but I suspect most of it will end up on a chip and whomever makes the capital investment necessary to do that will be the “Intel,” and there probably wont be enough market left for an AMD.


Larry, I saw your ANZA presentation last week in Brisbane... thank you you had some great comments. Having just come back from a scoping trip to the US and UK where we met VC's from Silicon Valley as well as a few clients... our international expansion plans look very positive indeed. One question though... given the exchange rates specifically pound to the dollar...given that the VC we are interested in has offices in London and the valley, what would be your thoughts around the best way to raise the funds? From the UK or Valley office... or how do you think the VC's would view it. I guess my logic is this.... raising $5mill from the valley office means that in the UK that's just been halved, however raising 5 million pound from the UK office is just that to them but its suddenly $10m in the US. I appreciate any comments.
Posted by Anonymous to Larry's VC View at March 19, 2008 6:49 PM


Mate, this is the wrong question, you need to be focusing on which partner in which fund can add the most value to your business – ideally, someone who has built a company like yours themselves, or at least invested in a bunch of them, who can realy help you avoid the pitfalls of others. There is little to your arbitrage concern, since its where you will build your business that will determine $ leverage, and at best it’s a 2nd, possibly 3rd order effect anyway. Don’t get wrapped around the axle on these things, focus on value not valuation; getting the deal done, not negotiation; and good luck with your deal.

The deal that died

So the deal was looking good, term sheet issued, and in negotiation, and deep diligence happening. Then there was a long discussion between Chairman and VC and the deal fell apart.

I got a call from one of the entrepreneurs and was suddenly in the middle of a “he-said-she-said” scenario. Anyway, a group of us got together and tried to piece together what went wrong and whether or not it was fixable. And here’s the rub--VCs really want to invest their dollars (actually it's not even their dollars ... another topic). Their business is to help you build success, so when a deal blows up it means everyone is hurting because they invested a huge amount of time and emotion falling in love, and now both parties have been jilted at the altar.

There are a bunch of probable causes for this--another lover has come on the scene and stolen their hearts--either another VC has offered better terms, or the VCs have seen something scary in the potential partner and got cold feet. Enter the counselor. What killed the deal I am referring to was a syndrome that is very common in non-US startups, and to an extent in non-Silicon Valley startups.

What happened was that there was a CEO and a Chairman and it wasn’t clear who was really the CEO, because in non-US companies, the Chairman has far more control than he does in a US corporation where all he can do is call the board meeting to order--other than that he’s just another director. In non-US companies, he gets to use the Chairman’s lounge at the airport, and that’s not something that he’ll give up lightly, neither the control of the company. Often he became Chairman because he was the original investor, possibly even a founder. Sometimes he is a value-added Chairman, but usually he’s an experienced business guy but not experienced in the market that the company is targeting.

Now he will often bring in an advisor, read i-bank, who will really mess things up; these companies don’t often get through the door in Valley VC firms but are remarkably common outside the Valley and the US in general--this is a really bad combination because the banker is focused on a single transaction, while the VC is focused on building value from three or so rounds of investment and wants to reward only those people who will contribute to the business going forward. The banker is gone after this first transaction, the chairman will no longer have the power or prestige he has today, and so they are both at odds with the VCs.

VCs fall in love with the founders and their idea--young, driven entrepreneurs, particularly engineers, are the life blood of VCs. These young entrepreneurs often look for some grey hair to advise them, and this is a good thing, but the wrong kind of person in this role can be disastrous. Anyway, in the company in question, all the players were good, solid business people, but several of them wanted to be CEO, and as VCs we had trouble working out who was who. As things turned out, the counselor was able to save the situation, and get the deal back on track. To the company’s credit they listened to the VC's issues, understood them, and modified their approach accordingly. It was a stellar result to bring this deal back from over the precipice.

But it never happened. There is yet another problem that kills deals--time. Entrepreneurs frequently focus the negotiation on valuation, rather than on speed of getting the company funded so they can run with the business before someone else does. The negotiation had dragged on so long that everyone had deal fatigue, and in the end, the VCs looked at the other deals they had in the pipeline, and looked back at the original deal with different eyes. Now, six months later, the original deal was not as beautiful anymore, and they fell out of love as there eyes were drawn to other more alluring deals.

It's happened to me, too, all too frequently (with VCs ... and women). But don’t despair, a good team with a good idea will get funded, just don’t get wrapped around the axle on issues that will drag things out beyond the shelf life of a deal. A good friend who is one of the most successful M&A gurus in the US tells me that time kills all deals. Don’t waste time, get it funded, and run with it, show your VCs you are passionate to go, and they will go with you.

Next time: When to take a smaller piece of a larger pie; Femtocells a new wave?

Larry responds ...

I wanted to respond to some of the posts and questions, so I will do that in this BLOG and post “The deal that died” next time. Please keep the questions coming, or propose new BLOG topics, it really helps me focus on what’s important to you.

Joyce said … Hey Larry - what are your top tips for crossing the chasm? Also, how can I persuade engineers that one or two Evangelist Clients does not guarantee commercial success (without demotivating them)?

I always liked Geoffrey Moore’s chasm talk – he’s the only guy I know who can whip through 75 slides in 20 minutes ;-) we had a great breakfast a few years back (at Il Formation) … this is what I learned:

The early adopter is the heart and soul of your initial marketing process – without them there is likely no real business. They have to value your technology (unlikely you have a real product at this stage) way beyond the money. They need to see clearly the unfair advantage that they can gain with you and be willing to put up cash to validate it. Often they will pay NRE to craft the technology into the product that they critically require – particularly in hardware companies. They will pay a premium to get the unfair advantage to grow their market. They will tolerate all types of problems, provided you properly set their expectations because they share your vision of what could be. Beware the tire kickers who are price sensitive and skeptical who can trash your “product” and stifle your growth – pay them no mind at this phase because you are simply not ready for prime time yet. Now, Joyce is right, you will start to kid yourself that you have made it because these evangelists love your technology and you are making “sales” – but the fact is, what you are really doing is developing your product and crafting your marketing, and sales processes – these are just as critical (and just as much processes) as product development. It gets very scary when you run out of early adopters because suddenly sales evaporate, and you don’t know where to go next except down into Moore’s Chasm.

If the early adopters are properly mined, then you have the beginnings of marketing – these early customers can become evangelists who will be your best initial sales force – if you have chosen correctly these people will be respected and followed by the mass market and even the skeptical customers will start to pay attention to you. Beware, you don’t get second chances with the skeptics – so make sure your product is solid, and you understand the sales process. Your early adopter who should have helped you navigate thru the internal process of their company so you have the beginnings of a sales process, the touch points, the decision makers – can you close a skeptic? Your sales process will need to morph as you learn and you will iterate many, many times, but you will develop the process and ultimately use it to win more and more customers.

I want to use Adrian, as an example here – he sells chip level software (more like hardware to me). Now Adrian tried shooting elephants, but they are hard to down, so after a while he learned that shooting squirrels is much easier and after a while he secured about 80 such customers, albeit smaller order sizes. Seeing this proliferation, his early adopter customers got even more excited and took him to their internal skeptics in other operating divisions who ended up signing near-exclusive agreements to use only his product across all their product lines. He broke from small volume early adopters, to mainstream mass market in about two years. Don’t be discouraged – it takes a lot of squirrels before you are ready to bag an elephant. I’ll write a BLOG on this soon.

Anonymous said … Can you write your next blog about great entrepreneurs going to the dark side?

So meet my buddy F who was a great product manager in telecom – he rolled out some of the most successful products in the early days (pre-bubble) of optical networking. A couple of years prior to the Internet and subsequent telecom boom, F saw what was coming and raised $45M to fund a revolutionary kind of optical transport company. Actually, initially he went to senior management and tried to convince them that this product would dramatically grow their business, but they were unable to see his vision. So F founded his first startup. He was funded by a dear friend of ours, who, during the telcom boom, was the most successful general partner at one the top three Sand Hill Rd venture firms.

In two years, his company had built a revolutionary new type of optical transport system and it was with great pride that he walked into his board meeting in early 2000 with an offer to acquire the company……for $1B…..!?! Now I still remember clearly his excitement at the offer, followed by astonishment at his board’s rejection of it – imagine $45M invested, $1B exit in just two years – it was unprecedented. What on earth was his board thinking? To quote one of the leading VCs at the time, “it’s not enough.”

Now many of us have been through this experience, very few at this price level, but many at far lower prices – and the shock of rejecting a perfectly good offer generally compounded into deep regret because the later offers (especially in 2001 and 2002) were far, far lower, or non-existent.

So F went back out into the market, continued to build his business, and later that year sold it … for over $3B!!! I guess this time, it was enough. With such a stellar return he was invited to become a partner at one of the leading firms, but decided, in a very entrepreneurial way, to control his own destiny, do his own investments and be a part time venture partner there. After a while, he took over a venture fund for a large corporation, and after making that fund good returns, he joined one of the rising stars in venture firms and continues to make great investments.

So what does F say about his journey? The hardest thing was realizing that he wasn’t an entrepreneur any more, i.e., he couldn’t do it all himself – he had to become a coach not a player, he had to learn to let the entrepreneurs do it themselves without jumping into every sales situation and deal and taking control. One of the characteristics I always notice when he hears a pitch, is that he stops the entrepreneur from diving into the story, and makes them talk about themselves – he has that uncanny entrepreneur’s instinct of judging character and will often get to know the entrepreneur for half of the initial meeting. It puts many entrepreneurs off (especially those who get embarrassed talking about themselves, i.e., mostly Aussies ;-)), because they want to talk about their products and companies.

F tells me he can make the general decision to invest simply from that first half-hour of getting a feel for the character and historical experience of the entrepreneur. He also is a great believer in first-time CEOs, not just because he was one, but because of their unique characteristics (discussed in an earlier BLOG). The other great characteristic that F has, is the ability to help the entrepreneur, in most cases strengthening their plan by seeing flaws in it that he himself has experienced. In a later Blog, I’ll try to get permission to tell Milton’s story, who is the most successful entrepreneur turned VC I know, but he’s pretty humble and won’t like publicizing himself. The other one is Kevin Kalkhoven, who took JDSU from a small OEM laser supplier to the largest optical component supplier in the world, then rolled over his gains to set up KPL ventures.

Mudmaps said … So Larry - tell us why you want to be a VC now? And why VCs want entrepreneurs in their ranks?

The other VC I wanted to mention in entrepreneur-to-VC transition was Dado Benato who founded Tallwood after building a very successful semiconductor company, and then doing a stint at Mayfield as a VC. Most VCs in Silicon Valley come from the ranks of entrepreneurs. I know that in other places VCs are often bankers, especially from private equity, but not here. Its scary being on the other side of the table, because I always thought it was hard to raise money from VCs, but never appreciated how positive and optimistic they are compared to limited partners, from whom VCs must raise their money ;-)

I think six startups is enough, and it’s time to help other startups get funded, and be successful. In 2005 I took a group of US VCs down to Australia, when that government was reviewing the venture ecosystem. Often it’s best for governments to get advice from independents who have no local political agenda. I’ve been in the US for 20 years this year, and I was shocked at the changes in my country. I saw a substantial unfulfilled need, and like any entrepreneur, an opportunity to fill it. I like many VCs, I also have had some bad experiences with them – I would like to be a different kind of VC, and I think there is a better chance of succeeding at that being a serial entrepreneur. Now, there’s a lot I don’t know (and I’m discovering more every day!) but VCs are supposed to add more than just money to their investee companies – that’s why they want serial entrepreneurs in their ranks.

Dado spends a day a week companies he is invested in and on the BoD of – his success metrics are exceptional. When asking for advice on how to be a better VC, one answer I got was this – “I don’t think the term VC is a meaningful term – your fund is a startup, like the companies you invest in. Focus on being a good entrepreneur for that startup and you’ll succeed; and if you do ever work out what a VC really is, please let me know” – I think that’s great advice for all of us ;-)

Share market crash: timing is everything!

In the midst of a major bear market, with global economies faltering and a worldwide credit crunch, it’s hard to see the future--I just witnessed a record one-day point drop on Asian markets and saw 12 IPOs cancelled indefinitely.

A couple of years ago I was starting the first day of a roadshow and the front page of the nation’s major financial paper read “Biggest one-day point drop since 911.” When it turns it turns fast. Everyone runs for the exit but there is no sign of an exit. It’s an ill wind that blows no good for someone. Let’s be realistic, some investors made far more on the 2000 market crash than most made on the rise--shorting stocks and the beneficial tax consequences created massive wealth for many--though not me unfortunately ;-).

For entrepreneurs, economic downturns can be good. Obviously if you are in the middle selling or IPO-ing your company, then it’s bad, but if you are fund raising it can be exceptionally good. Of my six startups, all but one was founded in either a recession or significant economic downturn--these are great times to start companies inventing and/or developing products that will come onto the market in a year or two. Established competitors are downsizing and slashing R&D to appease a falling market, while you are investing venture dollars on a far longer timescale than next quarter.

In a recession, everything is cheaper--employees are better and easier to recruit, materials are more available, and suppliers are eager to help you if you have money ... so how do you get money in a recession? It’s clearly not a great time for bootstrapping (unless your friends and family have nerves of steel)—it’s human nature to think the sky is falling once markets slide, and everyone fears for their future. Think back to 1999 and the ease of raising capital; 20 companies were funded in the same space when five years before two would be lucky to launch.

Unfortunately the size of the market didn’t really support 20 startups, and customers used the abundance of competition to drive down prices and force most of those startups out of business. Ironically, when the so called tech wreck hit, funding stopped and many companies hit the wall especially in internet and telecom. However, new areas won big, and many VCs kept investing – cleantech was born, solar cell companies were founded, and social networking found its beginnings.

It’s true that many VCs downsized their funds from $1 B to $0.5 B but they kept investing, this time in a manageable number of deals. Seven years later, VC funding has finally exceeded its 2000 peak--will there be a pullback similar to equity markets and real estate? Sure, but it wont stop, simply the quality of investments and entrepreneurs will get better. If you have a great idea, and a market exists in the two-year time frame, you will get funded, and by the time you come to market today’s bear will be a bull again.

A corollary to this “timing is everything theme,” is, when they pass the hors d’oeuvres, make sure you take two--I have never met the CEO who saved his business by avoiding dilution, but I know a lot who went through bankruptcy proceedings because of failing to raise sufficient capital. If you waste too many cycles on negotiating a term sheet trying to angle a better deal, the market can move past you and you end up with nothing.

VCs can be predatory in bad times, but they also get preyed upon in good times--if you can find an investor who will treat you fairly, and you believe you can build a strong long-term relationship it’s often a good long term decision to give on valuation in favor of the intangibles. You will be together for a long time, and markets will undoubtedly get bad at some point in your relationship--a good foundation and history can often carry you through when others fail … and sure, your VCs can help too ;-)

Next Time – “The deal that died”

Do you want to be rich or king?

This is a tough one--many VCs say that their entrepreneurs get wrapped around the axle on being the CEO (king). An old friend who ran HP labs for 20 years once told me that when people come to the Valley from elsewhere, they focus on three things--title, salary, and equity, and in that order; when in fact they should be in the reverse order with title a very very distant third. At HP the authority of knowledge overrode everything else.

After a few years in the Valley, most engineers recognize the futility of title, the lack of economic benefit in 50% money (i.e., the government takes half what you earn); but many reap the rewards of stock and options that build real wealth over time and attract lovely tax treatment (AMT not withstanding!). Now sure, many others held worthless options, but before the 2000 era, companies that built real value and solid quarter-to-quarter revenue growth went public and made real wealth. Post 2000, Google turned every rental tenant I had in Mountain View into a buyer wanting to do all cash deals (one actually offered Google stock … don’t ask!).

So if you are too focused on being the boss, you are focused on wining the wrong battle--it’s a very rare CEO who can invent, found, run through pre-revenue development, cross the chasm to growth phase, get the company public, and run it as a public entity. Interestingly those rare few who can evolve with the company’s growth usually do a stellar job but it’s a high risk proposition for investors. You must be focused on building value in any way you can--if you can recruit a start CEO who is better than you, then you need to be first in line to bring them on board; don’t wait for your board of directors to tell you.

So what’s my take on this debate? I think startup CEOs and founders should want to change the world (even just a little)--they should not be motivated simply to get rich. Greed alone is never enough to sustain you through the really hard times. The best founders are often people who tried to get their employer to pursue a new strategy or product but could not get buy-in from management; frustrated and wanting to serve more customers better, they leave and do it themselves.

Also, if you just want to be rich, you are temped to sell too early--think about the founder/CEO after first-round financing who might still own 30% of his company--a $30M offer to buy before substantial revenue is a life changing event for the founder vs. the risk of raising a B round to generate real revenue and build sustaining value (this is a real example that is happening as I write). Now the founder I’m talking about is a deeply dedicated entrepreneur driven to change something in the security market that has driven him crazy for years. He has quietly gone around getting design wins and a solid B round will launch him quickly into substantial revenue.

Consider the agonizing decision. $10M in his pocket is enough to change his life (more on this later). It’s not enough to change his employees’ lives, and this is a solid close-knit team that has fought long and hard to build a strong business. The dilemma for this founder is what he would do next. He has no interest in working for a big corporation--he’d probably start another company instead—but doing what? Probably what this firm does.

So after spending a while with the acquirer he turned the acquisition offer into a partnership and stove off a potential competitor (make vs. buy decisions are tricky to manage). He’s in the process of raising a B-round now, which I’m sure will be easy to do, and with that he should be able to build a $300M+ company, of which he’ll probably still own close to 20% and turn the $10M exit now into a $50M+ exit. But … maybe he’s another Phil Merrick and capable of driving this business all the way through an IPO … putting more than $100M in his pocket and making his investors and employees very happy.

I have never sold anything and not regretted selling it in hindsight (especially real estate), including IPOs that were perhaps a little too early. If you love working with customers and creating products that serve their needs better than what’s out there today, then you will change the world (even just a little)--what better driver could you have to be an entrepreneur?

Next Time: Share, market crash, and timing is everything

Welcome to Larry's VC View blog

Hi! Steve [Anderson] is trying to bring me into the new age of digital media, by having me write a blog rather than an article--or put another way, I offered to write another article about funding early stage companies, and Steve talked me into writing a series of sound bites, instead. The idea is to put something up every two weeks, and encourage an interactive forum where budding entrepreneurs can pose questions or topics, and I will try to answer them in the course of the blog. I’m a serial entrepreneur, morphing into a venture capitalist (VC), so hopefully before the disease takes full control of my system I will have enough humanity and humility left to be useful to fellow entrepreneurs in their quest for funding the next great idea.

I came to the U.S. from Australia about 18 years ago, and have done about six companies, with two IPOs--I have seen the worst of times, and the best, and the worst again, and again…. Hopefully I can share my worst mistakes and help fellow entrepreneurs avoid them. Also, I will try to share what I learn on the journey to becoming a VC to give an insight into that world as well.

My first topic is "First time CEOs."

So you are a young engineer with a great idea, in my case my boss wouldn’t listen and at one point actually told me he’d come after me if I tried to start any company--it was a very East Coast approach … anyway, you hopefully want to start a company because you are passionate about supplying a need that isn’t well served (or you want to be rich(er), in which case your probability of success is actually lower, but more on that later).

You go in for your First Pitch, and the VC doesn’t want to hear about your idea, he or she first wants to hear about you: who are you? what have you done? what qualifies you to be successful in your dream? He isn’t being antagonistic, he really wants to believe in you and fall in love with your idea as you have. So VCs tend to fall into two camps. The one you are worried about is the one who believes they need to recruit a really good CEO and management team for your company and that you will be a founding original contributor. So first, take heart, this is a really good sign--they like your idea and want to build a company. It actually doesn’t matter whether you are the CEO or not, but that’s a separate issue. If being CEO is important to you, there is another class of VC, generally newer, who believe in first-time CEOs.

Here’s why: first-time CEOs are hungry, they are not spoiled by success, and, as Darwin Smith said they “just want to qualify for the job” so they are great to work with and imminently coachable which VCs like (Darwin led Kimberly Clarke to greatness). I talked with several Sand Hill Road firms (in Silicon Valley), and of the top three, one did a study over all their portfolio companies since inception of the fund 20 years ago, and found to their surprise, that the first-time CEOs had a higher success rate than the serial entrepreneurs (there goes my track record). Its true. Nobody is more passionate about your idea than you are, and that’s a great qualification to lead a startup.

Don’t get married to the idea of being the boss, but don’t assume that lack of CEO experience will disqualify you either. I don’t need to point out Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Andy Grove--but how about Kevin Kalkhoven, or Phil Merrick. Okay, so they are fellow Aussies, but talk about a great debut as a CEO--and in Phil’s case all the way from startup through IPO and beyond. Often a company could go through three CEOs to achieve this (Phil also opened Nasdaq on the all time high and jokes that he pressed the wrong button …).

But don’t be married to being the CEO. Almost certainly you will want or need to replace yourself as your company grows. But don’t write it off either. Talk to your VCs. If its important to you, chances are they will give you a shot. Be careful what you wish for however, as they will do everything they can to find the diamond in the rough, but if you are pretty rough to start with (as I was) they will grind away pretty hard to polish you, and it can hurt.

Next time – “Do you want to be rich or king?”