I remember when I was in my early 20s and just starting out in the venture capital business, I came across an old wall street saying that “a market climbs a wall of worry.” I didn’t understand it and that made me want to. I read a bit about the saying and came to understand that bull markets require an uneasy feeling.
Worrying is a fundamental characteristic of most investors I know. Greed and fear are the two opposing elements of market forces.
I read a board deck this weekend from a portfolio company that is absolutely crushing it and forwarded it to our team at USV with a short memo outlining all of the risks I am worried about. Not a single enthusiastic comment was in that email.
Why is that? Because although we invest on “what could go right”, we manage our investments on “what might go wrong.”
I believe one of our greatest assets to our portfolio companies is to be an early warning sign of trouble. If we can help the founders/leaders and their teams be aware of risks on the horizon, they can manage against those risks. And if there is one thing investors, particularly ones who have been around a while know about, it is how things can and do go wrong.
Of course, how you worry is critical. You can’t weigh down the leadership teams with your worries. You can’t fill up the board meetings with angst.
You have to be supportive, optimistic, encouraging, and positive in your interactions with founder/leaders and their teams. But you must also flag areas where there could be trouble. Getting that balance right has been a work in progress for me for my entire career.
So being a worrier is an important characteristic in an investor. But you have to mostly keep those worries to yourself and your partners/team (this is a place where partners are invaluable). And you have to decide when a worry is significant enough to share it with your portfolio companies and then you need to find the right moment and narrative to communicate it. When you do it right, the teams appreciate it immensely.
