Wine & Venture Capital

Start-ups are like wines in the grape stage

Plenty of sour grapes

Can’t entertain every start-up idea

No shortage of proposals

Takes a long time & hard work to produce good fruit

Pruning is uncomfortable

No room for sentimentality

The success of a wine is determined by the skill of the winemaker

Wine and money flows

Can be dispiriting at times

Reality will almost always be different to the business plan

Venture Capital investors don’t generally include non-profit businesses in their investment portfolio

Wine farms don’t generally make profit

While blind tasting is a thing in wine circles, Venture Capital investors do not welcome blind investing

Customers may be more willing to splurge on wines with some sort of story behind them

It’s a global game

Don’t make investment choices near an open bottle 

Sometimes the best investments are the one’s you don’t make

Just like a small wine farming community, everybody knows what everybody else is doing....

Not all business plans make it to presentation stage but are often worth looking at

There is no simple formula for creating a successful business like there may be a standard method to

making a good wine

If all else fails, you can at least drink your product

Make sure you love what you do