Starting up #4 - Who is your decision maker?
This is the fourth post in a different kind of series on being a web entrepreneur. My goal is to show why making decisions in context will make a web business more successful. No decision stands alone; everything you do in your business will affect every other aspect of it. Previous posts in the series: Focus on one thing, Pick the right people, Picking a CMS.
In every start-up with funding from an institutional investor the day will come when you are asked to choose a main decision maker for your venture.
If in the past - before someone else’s $ became involved - you were used to working out the answers to every question as a team, this might sound odd. Surely you can continue doing so, especially now that the stakes are higher?
Unfortunately, no.
While you could and should keep your founding partner/s involved in the big decisions, it is important that one of you can be the go-to person for any questions your VC might have. Usually this will fall on the businessperson in your team.
The VCs will want to know who can make the call on things like revenue, funding, growth projections, partnerships etc.
From experience I know that a VC can be ok with you going back to your team to find out the answer to say a technical question. But when you are in a meeting with the $-peeps, you will benefit from being able to, and feel comfortable to, make decisions on behalf of your team when it comes to the money matters.
If you think this might be a thorny topic, I suggest talking it through with your co-founders before it becomes an issue. If there are two or three of you, it is likely that you already have defined areas of expertise; one of you is the biz person, another the Rails guru, and so on. Go ahead and explicitly allow the business person to make the call when needed to keep your venture moving and the investors reassured. It will save you time and heartache.
