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June 26, 2001
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Money > Business Headlines > Report June 26, 2001 |
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'This is a great time to start a business'Sukhjit Purewal
Listening to the venture capitalists who voiced their opinion at the eighth annual TiEcon, an entrepreneur may have left with a sense of ambivalence on his project being funded. During a press conference, Kanwal Rekhi repeated what others were saying throughout the weekend, "This is a great time to start a business." Rekhi, a veteran of the venture capital world, said: "It is back to good old days." Apparently, the good old days were when all you had to have was a business plan and a good product. "More money is going to those who are shipping their products," said Rick Bolander, a partner at Gabriel Ventures during a panel discussion dubbed 'Money Talks'. Audrey MacLean, a Stanford engineering professor and angel investor named by Business Week magazine as one of the top 50 businesswomen, said that venture capitalists are being so conservative with their money it is as if they are, 'preparing for a nuclear war'. Jim Swartz, founding partner at Accel Partners, said: "We were way over and now we are going to be way under." One of the problems, as Swartz sees it, is that nearly 70 per cent of the venture capitalists haven't seen a downturn like this because they are basically newcomers to the industry and have just followed the momentum. Another result of the downturn is that new business models are dead, Swartz said. But tight fists haven't discouraged determined entrepreneurs. Raman Khanna, general partner and managing director of Diamondhead Ventures, said that he is seeing entrepreneurs who are passionate about what they are doing. "What I saw before was four guys who talked over an idea over the weekend and then went looking for money." Joe Schell, chairman of global technology with Merrill Lynch, predicted that there would be a pick-up of IPOs in the latter part of the year. "The marketplace is dying to own stock." However, Scehell said that the IPOs will only come from those companies that have a proven track record according to old economy standards of high profitability and low cost. YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:
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