KEN OLISA - RICH or RIGHT?

In this regular monthly column, Ken Olisa will try to ensure that pundits Professor Right and Ms Rich provide meaningful answers to readers' questions on how to build value in IT businesses. Please address your questions on any business topic to: ([email protected]).

Why is it that all the venture capitalists (VCs) I meet don't seem to be older than 12?

Professor Right: There are two explanations. Either your impression is correct and none of them were born before 1986. Or you are wrong, in which case there is a far more sinister explanation.

Sadly, I think the latter is true. They're not all 12 or younger, but their appearance of youth results from a pact with the devil which all VCs must make on joining their secret society - the BVCA. Their diabolic form of the Hippocratic oath involves promising to avoid investing in IT companies at all cost. When they sign their allegiance to Old Nick, each receives one of two great rewards. They are either guaranteed a stress-free life by having their interest in business permanently removed or, if they have no business acumen in the first place, they are granted the gift of eternal youth. The only way to tell the two groups apart is to examine their CVs to determine whether they have done anything in their previous lives.

Miss Rich: The answer lies in the way VCs work. Although you would imagine their number one mission is to find the best deals in which to invest, bizarrely, the converse is true! UK venture capitalists receive so many business plans a year, relative to their ability to invest, that the industry has developed a complex technique of rejecting applicants, which is borrowed from book publishers and consists of three levels of sophistication.

The first technique is the Black Hole method. It involves simply losing your business plan and details. Any attempt to contact the VC is met with a warm request to 'put something down in writing and we'll take a look at it'. The Deflection method involves an encouraging meeting after which the VC chucks your plan into the bin and emails his secretary to send you a deflector. A deflector is a letter thanking you for your interest, but including the codewords 'this one isn't quite right for us'.

The most subtle method is deployed exclusively by the very large, sophisticated VCs and involves the use of one or two children. These fresh-faced young lads are trained to carry HP calculators - or if they're really New Age, Psion 3 PDAs - wherever they go. They are the ones who join you in the opulent conference room near to reception and behave as if they are in charge. Their role is to spend hours with you, perhaps over several meetings, raising your expectations prior to either losing your business plan, or writing to express regret that it isn't quite right for it.

Selling part of your company to a venture capitalist is like selling anything to anybody. And how often do you sell products to boys too young to drink? At the first meeting, ask who makes the decisions, what the process is, how long it takes and what criteria are used to make them.

That way, you can stay in control of the relationship and avoid having your hopes dashed unnecessarily.

My son wants to become a venture capitalist. What do you think?

Professor Right: Oh dear! You must be distraught, worrying about where you went wrong in his upbringing! Perhaps he was dropped on his head when he was young, or did you send him away to one of those dreadful minor public schools where everyone wears those silly pinky rings, speaks with an equally silly pinky accent and develops ambitions to do a pinky job in finance?

The first thing to do is try to dissuade him - look him firmly in the eye and ask him whether he really wants to become a hate figure throughout British industry. Tell him that mothers will threaten their naughty children with a visit to his offices. If you can't dissuade him, all you can do is develop a strategy to disguise his employment from your neighbours.

You know, tell them that he's an accountant or 'something in the City'.

On the positive side, it could have been much worse - he could have wanted to be a salesman!

Miss Rich: Now, now, it's not so bad. Yes, it's true that VCs tend to be fairly unpopular, but they do have some redeeming features, such as low levels of stress and high levels of wealth. Your only challenge is to figure out how to persuade him to share both with you.

We are a reasonably sized systems integrator and software developer.

Our marketing manager resigned recently and our finance director, who has recently completed an MBA, has suggested adding marketing to his responsibilities.

Is this a good idea? Do you think he'll be able to wear both hats?

Professor Right: It depends how much time he has left once he's finished the books. If he's managed to earn his MBA in his spare time, he has demonstrated that he can successfully juggle his different responsibilities. The main role of a marketing department is to generate sales leads, which shouldn't take up too much time. So, if he has one day a week to spare, I would give him a go. And because he's the FD, he won't dare to suggest a pay increase - so you get to save a whole salary, too.

Ms Rich: There are several reasons why this is a really dumb suggestion, but the main one is big enough to kill it dead. Astute financial management and marketing have as much in common spiritually as chess playing and bungee jumping. Accountants are the sort of people who, in a war, go in and bayonet the wounded; marketeers are the kind of people who convince the wounded they are much better off than the dead.

The role of the marketing department is far greater than lead generation.

Your survival depends on having a strategy to avoid the dangers affecting today's IT industry - year 2000, EMU, internet, deregulation and so on.

It is the marketing director's job to define and implement that strategy.

That will cost money and his or her survival will depend on spending that money wisely. By contrast, the survival of an FD depends entirely on not spending the stuff.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm suspicious about your FD - he's just finished his MBA, so he should have no illusions about the two roles. Also, I am rather worried about his desire to become a sort of functional transvestite. Do you think he has spent his life struggling with the realisation that he is a marketing man trapped inside an accountant's body?

I'd recommend counselling for the FD and the recruitment of a real head of marketing for the business.

Over the last five years, the company of which I am sales director has grown from strength to strength. Now we are very profitable and have a really strong customer base in international banks located in the UK.

The board has decided it is time to expand internationally and most of us prefer the US as our next market. Unfortunately, the MD wants us to attack the Far East, starting with Thailand! This is not quite as crazy as it seems - his wife is a Thai. Do you have any good ideas on how we can persuade him the US is the most logical next step?

Professor Right: What a preposterous idea - I once got stuck at Bangkok Airport when my flight to New Zealand was diverted for technical reasons.

I spent two hours bursting to go to the lavatory, unable to work out which door was the gents, which was the ladies and which was the secret police.

I've never been so relieved as when I got back on board the plane, where the signs on the door were written in a proper script!

What you need are some indisputable facts to persuade him (and probably his wife, who sounds like the power behind the throne to me) that this market, where you can't even read their writing, just doesn't make economic sense.

There are various useful sources for data. For example, the DTI has recently made some surprising advances in this direction. For not very much money you can commission it to carry out basic research on the economic potential offered by various countries and I am pretty certain it covers Siam with this service. If your boss is a member of the Institute of Directors he can ask its researchers to put together a useful package of information at very little cost.

And, of course, there is always the local library. Our splendid old Victorian building has a large range of very interesting books, covering a wide range of subjects. I checked it out when I was returning my copy of How to Develop a Power Memory - it's such a good read and I keep finding bits that I've overlooked in previous readings. They carry a very useful series on doing business abroad, published by The Economist. Even if your branch doesn't have this, it should be able to get them for you via the inter-library loan service.

We have outgrown our premises and I have started to look around our town to find some bigger space. There doesn't seem to be any, but I have found a plot of land with outline planning permission for a mixed retail and office block. On one hand I am excited by the prospect of my own building, on the other I find the idea of taking on shops as well as offices rather daunting. What would be an appropriate range to sell in three shops at the bottom of a computer company's office block?

Professor Right: The obvious solution would be a software shop to support your core business - very handy when you need a new copy of some Java add-in applets; a computer book shop so that you have somewhere to go to answer that niggling question about Java programming; and a coffee shop where you can sit and read the book over a steaming mug of - you've guessed it - Java coffee!

Ms Rich: A wise American once told me there are three rules which determine whether an investment makes sense in the real estate business: location, location and location.

As a wise Brit, I can tell you there are three rules to be considered when an IT company considers entering the property business: don't, don't, don't.