David Hornik has an eclectic educational background: He holds an B.A. in Computer Music from Stanford University, an M.Phil in Criminology from Cambridge University and a Law Degree from Harvard Law School. But as soon as David started working with startup companies he found it „completely addictive“ and figured out that this was what he loved. When he got to know people from August Capital in 2000, they asked him to consider to come on their side of the table. He decided to join them and still finds it was the right decision: „I’m very grateful and couldn’t be happier.“
Having no particular expertise David calls himself „a collectic“ and finds that a lot of successful investors are generalists. With August Capital, David funded a broad set of companies, amongst others a blogging company called Six Apart, the media ad platform VideoEgg, the U.S. payroll company Paycycle and the search engine Splunk. Furthermore, he seed-funded Technorati. With regard to the economic downturn, David finds that „entrepreneurs that endure tough times and make their businesses work despite the economy end up building valuable businesses.“ According to David, August Capital will be raising a new fund and „is always looking for smart teams that are developing interesting technology .“ In order to get funded by August Capital David advises: „It’s best to get introduced to me by someone trust. Then feel free to write an e-mail to hornik --@-- augustcap --.-- com.“
David stresses the importance of relationships: „You have to be engaged in the community and build relationships. I honestly think business is a very personal thing. For starting up a company find the right people first. We’re at August Capital are much more likely to fund a team than a technology. Who you have joined forces with to build a startup will mean a lot more than what you are up to.“
David Hornik is also a lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and the Harvard Law School as well as the author of VentureBlog and VentureCast.
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11.01.2009 at 23:01
[...] von Tiburon TV stellt in Ihrem Interview mit David Hornik zumindest einen Venture Capitalisten mit einem interessanten Background [...]