Startup founders just getting their projects off the ground can be so focused on finding money, period, that they don’t think about being choosy about who it comes from. But according to August Capital partner David Hornik, founders should think just as much about the “who” as they do about the “how much” before inking a VC deal: Finding compatible investors personality-wise is just as important to the success of a startup as the dollar figures on the check, he says.
We had the pleasure of spending some time talking to Hornik earlier this month at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas about what it means to find the proverbial “smart money” and how entrepreneurs can go about doing it. Watch the video embedded above to hear about that, why he disagrees with Vinod Khosla on whether entrepreneurs and investors should be friends, the founder personalities he finds himself gravitating towards, whether the pool of startup founders he’s seen has become more diverse in Hornik’s 13 year career as a VC, and more.