I was just listening the other day to the Monty Python song "There's nothing quite as wonderful as money (etc)" (actually it's called the Money Song). Of course it's amusing but in my personal experience there's lots of things more wonderful than money. And so, some people think it's odd that I'm in this for the big score. The real reason is that I want to have a nice bit of scratch in the bank when Semacode works out so that I can go and do it again.

To any kind of prospective investor in the company (or into any "early-stage" company for that matter) that's going to be music to the ears. Let's be realistic about how you can make boatloads of money. In keeping with the novel "The first $20 million is the hardest" I'll define "boatloads of cash" as $10 million (seriously ...). The only realistically legal way to go from normal to $10M is to start a company, period. You'll never get there no matter how successful a lawyer / doctor / whatever you are. And then, the $10M point is where you can basically stop worrying about money for the rest of your life, unless you have a very strong need to buy yachts, private airplanes, or islands.

The point isn't that you're going to spend it. The point is that if you have $10M it will keep itself going and the interest you can earn on it (let's say conservatively 8%) is enough to keep you going at whatever you want to do, family included. Even if you accidentally throw half of it away, which wouldn't surprise anyone (ask Steve Wozniak).

And that might include for example, working on some other technology that's not paying a cent for a few years like I did before semacode started to pay. As I said, the next idea. I have a few by the way.

Investors, whether Angel, VC, or whatever, like to hear that because they're very focused on the so-called "exit event". This is something that seems to be very poorly understood by the common folk, e.g., my friends and family. The "exit point" is the point at which people who own shares get to turn them into something a little more liquid, that might be cash (preferably) or shares in some larger company. The EXIT is the ultimate goal of all entrepreneurs and investors in new companies. Why? Simple. They are entrepreneurs - they don't want to do that same thing forever. They like starting companies, so once the company is well and truly started, they don't want to hang around. They'd rather go and start another one.

The EXIT provides an opportunity to turn all their hard work on the company into cold hard cash, preferably $10M or more, and then it's time for the next thing.

I think a lot of people don't realize that that's how it works. That's the ultimate financial goal of a startup company. But I emphasize that it's not the whole goal, or even the most important goal, for me, and for many other founders. It can be hard to believe this, but starting a company isn't all that painful. Oh, I know, you constantly hear about how hard it is to start a company, how you have to work 16 hour days and blah blah blah. And also people who get rich, I think a lot of people think that getting rich is why they're in it. Personally, my attitude is that if you can get rich without being ruined by it, then that's pretty impressive. Success can be very hard on your personality.

And by the way, I'm not predicting that I'm about to get rich...

So anyway, the psychology of a lot of investors in startup companies, whether they're angel investors or VCs or whatever. Or, people who are experienced business people considering getting back into a startup company. I guess I have two thoughts. One is that I think they're looking for a sort of vicarious startup experience. When you're the founder, there's a lot of stress, yes, even though it might be good stress, you do occasionally have to push hard. As an old hand diving in again fully (that is, founding a new company yourself) has some drawbacks: it's got personal drawbacks, maybe you've got a family, and also it might not satisfy a desire to give back to the community. By investing your money, you can help out a new generation of upstart founders, get invovled in the action without being tied to the horse, and so on. There are people who actually do the serial entrepreneur thing, many because their previous companies didn't do quite well enough to hit the $10M barrier, and others (really) because they want the full monty again.

Anyway, a long post, but I want to say just one more thing. When you are meeting these people, always always always find out what their previous experience is in starting up companies. Anyone who has successfully started a company, made it to $10M or whatever, and is interesting in getting involved with you, is an A+. Someone who has founded before, and was moderately successful, but didn't make it to the magic $ figure, is an A. And someone who founded a company but fizzled and never did it again, you shouldn't be getting business advice from them.