What business angels can learn from hobby gardeners

From the end of March to the beginning of April the game begins anew for every hobby gardener: a fallow area has to be cultivated. Preliminary work includes digging and fertilising the field and preparing plans for crop rotation. As soon as the preparations are completed, you can either sow or plant seedlings in the soil.

The hope is that the seed will grow and the young plants will develop well to produce a good harvest at the end of the season. Many unforeseen things can happen along the way: The seed was too old or of inferior quality so that only part of the seed rises. The young plants can, for example, be weakened or even destroyed by initial cold, too much rain, too much drought or, even worse, by a greedy hare or plundering crows. During the growth phase, pests such as potato beetles, voles or cabbage flies also attack the plants.

In order to achieve a good crop yield, sufficient watering must be provided throughout the whole time, pests should be controlled as best as possible in a natural way. Weeding is inevitable because it helps to win the competition for soil food in favour of crops. Sometimes it makes sense to re-fertilise during the growth phase.

As a venture capital investor, you also have the task of identifying the earnings potential of a market field before investing, developing a plan to cultivate the market and having a clear idea of what product development should look like.

The natural imponderables that a hobby gardener has to struggle with can also be found in venture capital. Just as the gardener has to stick to his plan systematically, so does a VC investor. He must constantly look after his young plants without knowing in advance whether there will be a crop yield or how high it will be. If the gardener works systematically, despite back pain after field work, itchy mosquito bites or regularly dirty fingernails, his field will at least yield a small harvest. Whether a real return is achieved depends on the size of the area cultivated and the number of different plant species.

The same applies to venture capital: diversification is the key to success. Only relying on one crop / few investments can prove unsuccessful. There will be phases in which you want to question your work and give up.

A VC investor who implements his plan will reap, as will the hobby gardener.

Mato Krahl

https://mk-vc.com