Early Stage Investment Quotes

We were very, very lucky being in the first round of Y Combinator because that alone generated a lot of interest. A lot of readers of Paul Graham were just excited to see what was going to come up. And we were the first ones to launch.

The thing about Y Combinator that's cool is that most companies won't happen if we don't fund them.

I almost never invest in ideas or plans, so you'll need to have a company and at least a product, if not customers.

While I'm a venture capitalist who invests in early-stage tech companies, I often feel like a professional emailer and conference call maker. I try to spend most of my time doing whatever the companies we are investors in need me to do.

Kai-Fu's Innovation Works is the top very-early-stage fund in China. We are proud to be an investor, and hope that IW will help to produce in China companies on the scale of Facebook, Zynga, or Groupon.

Challenges keep evolving as you move into different stages. When you are at a prototype stage, it's about getting that sustenance money. Then, talent becomes an issue; your early hires are difficult to get when you aren't too big. Later, it's about handling growth; then, you have competition.

Venture capital has done much more, I think, to improve efficiency than anything.

I fully understand that not all of the companies will succeed and that there will be losses along the way, but this is very much the norm with early stage investment.