Venture Capitalists, Movie Producers, What's The Difference?

from the not-much... dept

Plenty of people in Silicon Valley (though, most often, VCs themselves) refer to venture capitalists as the “movie producers of startups.” As in Hollywood, the VC supplies the money, gets lots of credit, and often provides connections and guidance (whether good or bad). So, it’s really not a huge surprise that some would consider crossing the line from one to the other. Over in India, it appears that some Bollywood filmmakers are targeting Indian VCs to produce movies instead of funding startups. At least the “exit strategy” has a shorter horizon.


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Comments on “Venture Capitalists, Movie Producers, What's The Difference?”

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5 Comments
jeremiah (user link) says:

What's the diff? A world.

Based on personal experience with this exact thing (shopping entertainment ventures to traditional VC versus production companies), I’d say there’s a world of difference between the two.
Most notably, VC’s are known for what they don’t know: in other words, it’s quite common (IMHO) for a VC firm to know little-to-nothing about the particulars of their investment. They’re “business people”, not wonks, so their detailed understanding of the physics of the business they’re invested in is not typically that deep.
Film producers, on the other hand, tend to have a lot of actual production experience in one capacity or another. This highlights another difference where producers are often managers as well, whereas VC’s tend to be distant from the day-to-day operations of a company. Producers are often involved directly in the day-to-day physics of filmmaking.
A good producer is also skilled at relationship management, as they are the buffer between the money (executive producers) and the talent.
Of course, i’ve witnessed exceptions to both of these scenarios; it’s more of a broad generalization.

Darren (profile) says:

Please Remove My Post

As I have tried to remove my post, but was unable to successfully sign in- nor, was I able to use my email address to resend my password; I’m unable to remove this posting….If you could please do so, I would sincerely appreciate it.
If you need to verify my email address: dmmackay@hotmail.com Please do so!

Perhaps this was not the appropriate form to tell my story.

Sincerely,
Darren MacKay

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