Make Younger VCs Your Champions

I took a negotiations class in business school. In one of the lectures the professor talked about the degree to which the age of a counterparty matters to negotiators from different cultures. The professor claimed that the American culture is far less focused on age and far more focused on performance than other cultures. However, this doesn’t mean that business professionals in the US are not somewhat focused on age.

Most VCs have Analysts, Associates and Principals working below their Managing Directors. These junior investment professionals can be as young as 22 years old. While the younger they are the less influence they typically have on investment decisions, writing these people off is a bad idea.

Junior members of the investment team play a significant role in shaping the partnership’s view of your company. Not only do they voice opinions that influence the collective viewpoint, but also they lead diligence efforts and synthesize findings, which are critical to the whole team’s decision making.

Statisticians have identified a phenomenon called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias describes people’s innate tendency to interpret and shade research to support their initial hypothesis. While investment professionals strive to be independent of this bias, when a VC likes you and your company they will be more inclined to draw conclusions in your favor.

In sum, it’s worth your time to engage, befriend and convince junior investment professionals. Ultimately you’re better off if they like both you and your company.

This column was provided by Mark Davis. Mark is the author of Get Venture, a column designed to help entrepreneurs raise venture capital. In addition to his column, Mark is active in the venture community as an entrepreneur, advisor and venture capitalist. He currently works at DFJ Gotham Ventures, a leading early-stage IT venture capital fund based in NYC. Mark earned his B.A. in Economics with a minor in History at Duke University and is pursuing his MBA at Columbia Business School, where he is the Early Stage President of the Private Equity and Venture Capital Club and the Founder of the Columbia Venture Community .