obviously don’t speak for all investors. But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. And they’re easy to remember because they all begin with an M: management, market, money and above all else momentum.

This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. It’s a conversation that creeps up from time-to-time. This person had been introduced to me several times by angels and I was told that I’d be the perfect seed investor. I was interested in learning more. For a combination of reasons I didn’t end up talking with the CEO in time and the company quickly became over subscribed. That’s fine. It is probably the right thing for the stage of company.

This is so brilliant ... asking his customers 'are you going to feel any pressure to earn this money back in the next xx time?'; if their answer is 'yes', then they are not eligible to attend his very high-price seminar! His point: Not to have his customer to have the pressure of incurring a debt because of going to his seminar (or to even thinking about scraping up the money to pay for the seminar, hence creating a certain kind of mentality) ... it adds stress to the customer's life, and it adds stress to his life.