VC Lingo I Hate: “Adult Supervision”
November 9th, 2006 • Business, Entrepreneurship + Startups, Venture Capital
I was recently talking to a friend of mine and a VC term came up in the conversation: “adult supervision”. I really, really, REALLY hate that phrase. If you don’t know the context of this phrase - it is often used to imply that entrepreneurs need someone from outside of the company to make sure they aren’t messing up. I agree with the thought, just not the terminology.
Why? The modifier “adult” implies that those being “supervised” aren’t adults. So if you aren’t an adult, what are you? You’re a child. There are very few entrepreneurs that I know of who are children (lemonade stands aside). Would you ever go into a corporate setting and call a head of a division an “adult supervisor”? Perhaps the “adult” part implies that the person is supervising other adults (like an “office supervisor”). But in that case, the person would just be a “supervisor”, wouldn’t they?
So if I agree that entrepreneurs do need outside supervision/advising (as a group we often get tunnel vision), what should that person/group be called? I suggest one of two choices. Either “investment supervisor” or “management advisor”. The function of this person (or group) is really to oversee a VC’s investment in a company and make sure that the money is spent wisely. The way this is often done is through advising management and make sure they don’t make mistakes that are easy to avoid.
I’ll freely admit that I wish I had this kind of outside advice in the early days of Digital Envoy. Fortunately, my two co-founders and I were pretty capable, as a group, in avoiding the usual pitfalls of startup life. This is why I now freely give my time to other entrepreneurs who need advice in their businesses.
If VCs want to improve their relationship with entrepreneurs, they need to start looking at the things they say and do and make sure they aren’t being offensive towards their future business partners. Remember, all business transactions, in the end, are based on relationships. If you forge poor relationships, your deal flow will dry up. If you think there aren’t forums through which entrepreneurs talk to each other about their experiences (with VCs and other things), I’d say you were wrong.
