Too much putting the cart before the horse with all of this. Start-ups are not about VC, that is a whole different animal that borrows the start-up image to look exciting. The problem with this money over product focus is that the skills required to build a solution with a few friends in your dorm room are wildly different than the skills required to run a company with even a few million dollars, offices, accountants, lawyers, marketing reps, project milestones, intellectual property considerations, etc, etc, etc.
I've worked with quite a number of start-ups (from both sides) and you might get small amounts of cash thrown at you here and there, the majority of it goes like this: VC: "Here is $5,000,000." You: "Thank you, this will really go a long way toward-" VC: "We get 30%, non-ratcheting." You: "Um, ok... non-what-" VC: "You'll take four years to full vest. Here are your milestones." You: "Wait, so that means that-" VC: "Bob is joining your team as VP, Operations." You: "Excellent! I really liked Bob-" VC: "His salary is $200,000, plus bonuses." You: "He gets paid from the $5mil?" VC: "Joe, Mike, and Mary are all joining, at $150,000p/a each to handle Marketing, Development, and Finance." You: "..." VC: "You're moving to a new office and I need a demo, highlighting the list of features Bob will give you later, for the X expo." You: "Three days from now?" And so begins your new life. As a VC however, instead of one success out of a few hundred, you now start getting one success out out a small handful, because you are actually making those successes, your executives. That is the player that is missing from the start-up landscape here; money and talent to take interesting toys and turn them into viable companies. As for investing super in start-ups? Honestly, that is a terrible idea that completely flies in the face of what start-up investment should do and what superannuation should do. Approval of such a plan, would be a disaster, rife with fraud, excessive risk, and would further disrupt and dissuade the start-up market. Cheers, Rob
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