Historically, software investors avoided low-priced products like the plague. But on the Internet, free products can generate huge market value, such as Hotmail with free web-based email and NetZero in free Internet access. Often the first offer wins the day. The ability to move fast is crucial in our business, and so we've engineered our due diligence process to be expeditious. Most venture firms use Monday Partners' meetings as their focal decision-making venue.
Most deals require a series of decisions, and a weekly pulse is deathly slow.
The decision-making process stretches out to months, which feels like years in Internet Time. We use frequent, casual conversations to make decisions, rather than relying on formal memos, and this helps us to communicate more effectively and make decisions more rapidly. We never use Excel. We don't build financial models. Instead, we look for entrepreneurs who want to change the world and are going after billion dollar opportunities.