Why have the Shotput Ventures Requirements

After publishing a post yesterday stating that the main reason applicants to Shotput Ventures are turned down is due to not meeting our published requirements, some people naturally defended the entrepreneurs as rule breakers (e.g. here). Thinking about it for a bit, I believe it is important to note that there is a serious difference between a rule breaker and fitting our thesis.

Is the reason we have the requirements for Shotput Ventures to make it easy to turn away applicants? No.

The reason we have the requirements is that we have a specific investment thesis that goes something like this:

• We’re only scratching the surface as to how the Internet is going to change our lives
• Never in history has it been so cheap to create a technology company
• There is a segment of entrepreneurs that can afford to live on next to nothing and would like a group of mentors, and a small amount of money, to help see them through getting a prototype built

We have the requirements in place because we’ve already funded eight companies and have learned from that experience. Things we require, like having a technical co-founder, and preferably two, have directly correlated with company success. Combine our experience with our investment thesis and you have why we enforce the requirements.