So in a world where diligence on private-market operating businesses can take months, it’s natural to wonder how much accuracy would be lost if we compressed all that work down to seven minutes.

We’ve made it — the last installment of our primer on startup investing for the non-startup-investor. We’ve covered the [b]asic plumbing, and we’ve covered [c]onstrained focus. That means we’ve earned the right to press our advantage with the most powerful force in private-market investing, [a]lignment. It ain’t Over till it’s Over First, we meet. Then we invest. And […]

Compressing years of startup investing experience into a listicle is probably just what the internet was invented for, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Instead, here are a few quick guidelines — the bare necessities to prevent immediate disqualification in your rookie year.

There is a pervasive mythology that startup investing is particularly difficult, and that the people who do it are particularly special. Vaunted names are spoken in hushed tones … Sacca, Doerr, Andreesen. Otherworldly high-performers whose early and growing portfolio of winners cannot simply be explained away by survivorship bias.