vc if you've never had the pleasure of negotiating with money (either venture capital or a sugar daddy) to get financing for your hot startup company, listen up. i'll give you a peek behind the scenes. first, you have to have some sort of in. otherwise, it's all thanks but no thanks. typically you drop off a hefty spa certificate at the front desk and casually ask where and when mr buck biggs will be playing golf this week. then you arrange an accidental meeting. let them win. and now they'll look at your plan. see? you have to demonstrate you know how the game is played. otherwise you're totally not interesting. then you get to schedule a presentation. however, at the last minute mr biggs is unfortunately unexpectedly unavailable. so you get to talk to the janitor. he loves it. and will make sure mr biggs gets the information. presumably, you're courting mr biggs cause he has an interest in your field. so a manager gets back to you. another presentation. he loves it. mr biggs loves it. they'll provide money for 10% of the company. great! best possible deal. you knew you had a hot product. pop the champagne. so you get the contract. actually you don't. there are delays. but finally it arrives. except there's one teensy weensy little error. they get 20% of the company. oh sorry, they say. we'll fix that up in a jiffy. except it takes an army of people in the same place at the same time. a veritable scheduling nightmare. ah ha! success at last. good thing too. you're running perilously low on whatever bootstrap funds you started with. except the contract says 30%. you sign it anyways. then you read it more carefully. it's really 40%. and they get to install anyone they want on the board of directors. who immediately leverages 40% to 50%. but the money's in the bank. with only a few minor hiccups. the product is making its way to market. launch time. you need an impressive amount of capital to ramp up production. that was supposed to be included in the original contract. pits. now you need to do another round of raising money. 60% 70% 80% 90% gone. sigh. not much you can do. it's not like there's any other game in town.  ¶ 8:00 AM