This is a YouTube video titled "Here’s What VCs Actually Look For" containing a monologue or talk by Howard Marks discussing the key factors that make a startup attractive to institutional venture capitalists, including having a balanced founding team, a minimum viable product, and customer interest. The content is focused on startup fundraising advice and was created in March 2025.
If you're asking about how do I get a big check, an institutional VC that could then be leveraged to go get all the other checks, you have to have everything that would make yourself attractive, including the fact that you have a well balanced co founding team. That's technical. You have the initial risky points of the business, whether technical or customer or market. You have some basic MVP or something built that to show that you're able to do what you want to do. Ideally, you've talked to 50 to 100 customers and you have to 10 people that are interested to be a design partner. That's all a pretty good start. To be able to easily raise a million on a 10 million post, for example.
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