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16 July 2014
Dmitry Chikhachev: “Don’t Whine, Don’t Get Angry, Do Not Slack Off”
Dmitry Chikhachev, co-founder and managing partner of Runa Capital, a USD 135 million venture capital fund, has worked in various business functions or 18 years. Dmitry is well-known as an experienced investor on whose watch many Russian and international companies expanded their business several times over and have gone on to become market leaders. Today, Dmitry hs formulated his set of rules he lives by for a GenerationS special project.
I try my best not to cause harm to people, in every sense of the world. Learning to eliminate your anger is most important. Also, you must never complain about the circumstances you’re in or be lazy. Don’t whine, don’t get angry, do not slack off – this is my motto.
The question “where do you look for projects?” is very much like “where do you meet pretty girls and how?” There are dozens of different places ad different ways to do that. But they all have one thing in common: the prospective partner has to be attractive. This is why we focus primarily on keeping our business reputation impeccable and on achieving specific results. Information about closed exit deals and success by companies in the venture portfolio is the best advertising for a venture capitalist. If you have a strong reputation, the rest is just a matter of routine: entrepreneurs will come to you themselves and will recommend you to their friends.
The market always has demand for startups with a strong potential. Right now, this is cloud [computing] and mobile technologies, tomorrow it’ll be Internet of Things or something else. This is not the most important thing. The most important thing, let me repeat once again, is that there is a pervasive problem that a startup has a technology or a product to solve, and, definitely, a strong team behind it. It is the team that is the key to a strartup’s strong potential.
If an entrepreneur cannot find an investor’s email, he is no entrepreneur! This is only part joke. The best way to find me is to send an email to me or one of the partners. Finding the email address is easy. Seriously speaking, I have accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and I show up in person at our venture capital fund’s events.
From an investor’s perspective, a successful entrepreneur is one who has been able to build up a higher market capitalization for his company and exit the business. If an entrepreneur is not ready to exit, this must be his hobby, not his business. Any other motivation – becoming the best in one’s market, creating an excellent product, doing what one likes and does best – is certainly also important. However, a business is about money first, especially if it goes out to raise investment. Profits and market capitalization are the key measures of success.
It is more important how significantly your company’s market capitalization is going to grow once you get an investor than what share of your business you are handing over to your investor today. You cannot eat percentages per se, and 50% of a billion is more than 90% of 10 million. Try to solve users’ real problems rather than finding expression for your inner self, creating the functionality you like simply because you like it, or finding solutions to interesting technological problems. Customers pay money for a solution to their problem. The more wide-spread and the more painful a problem you can solve is, the more money you can make.
This article originally appeared online on Firrma.ru, in a modified form.
The question “where do you look for projects?” is very much like “where do you meet pretty girls and how?” There are dozens of different places ad different ways to do that. But they all have one thing in common: the prospective partner has to be attractive. This is why we focus primarily on keeping our business reputation impeccable and on achieving specific results. Information about closed exit deals and success by companies in the venture portfolio is the best advertising for a venture capitalist. If you have a strong reputation, the rest is just a matter of routine: entrepreneurs will come to you themselves and will recommend you to their friends.
The market always has demand for startups with a strong potential. Right now, this is cloud [computing] and mobile technologies, tomorrow it’ll be Internet of Things or something else. This is not the most important thing. The most important thing, let me repeat once again, is that there is a pervasive problem that a startup has a technology or a product to solve, and, definitely, a strong team behind it. It is the team that is the key to a strartup’s strong potential.
If an entrepreneur cannot find an investor’s email, he is no entrepreneur! This is only part joke. The best way to find me is to send an email to me or one of the partners. Finding the email address is easy. Seriously speaking, I have accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and I show up in person at our venture capital fund’s events.
From an investor’s perspective, a successful entrepreneur is one who has been able to build up a higher market capitalization for his company and exit the business. If an entrepreneur is not ready to exit, this must be his hobby, not his business. Any other motivation – becoming the best in one’s market, creating an excellent product, doing what one likes and does best – is certainly also important. However, a business is about money first, especially if it goes out to raise investment. Profits and market capitalization are the key measures of success.
It is more important how significantly your company’s market capitalization is going to grow once you get an investor than what share of your business you are handing over to your investor today. You cannot eat percentages per se, and 50% of a billion is more than 90% of 10 million. Try to solve users’ real problems rather than finding expression for your inner self, creating the functionality you like simply because you like it, or finding solutions to interesting technological problems. Customers pay money for a solution to their problem. The more wide-spread and the more painful a problem you can solve is, the more money you can make.
This article originally appeared online on Firrma.ru, in a modified form.
