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Management: Competency

In your first meeting (and thereafter) a VC will be looking for two key qualities in your management team: competency and compatability.

Your team can demonstrate competency in a few ways. The easiest is to have people on the team who have been successful entrepreneurs. However, you can demonstrate competency without being on your third startup.

The best way to do this is simply by being prepared. Know your industry, know your business model, have a clean presentation, know your barriers, know your competition, use an addressable market (not a market size) and appear comfortable with the information. When a VC sees this they will gain comfort with your team's ability.

Note that being prepared doesn't mean that you need to have every answer. It's OK to not know some details off hand or to not have conducted an obscure analysis before the meeting. While it's no big deal to circle back on some of the questions that a VC has, giving the wrong answer can destroy trust.

Perception can quickly influence reality. Be sure to demonstrate your teams competence by being prepared and being honest.

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