Youre in the office of a Venture Capitalist. Stacked on his desk are dozens of business plans. On the table beside him are many dozens more. His secretary enters, burdened with the mornings mail. He groans. More business plans.

Is this man, who manages a VC firm, unique in his field?

No. Every individual VC or VC firm is being inundated daily with people wanting investment in their ideas, their concepts, their companies. Its been this way for decades.

The Glory Days

Back in the 90s, when the DotCom fervor was in full flower, there were even more business plans coming through the door, just as many phone calls asking for the chance to make a presentation.

There were then, too, hundreds of Venture Capital Clubs. These were groups of individual private investors who had gotten together to provide breakfast or luncheon meetings so that potential projects could be looked at, their principals open for questions.

Those were the glory days. Companies were getting hundreds of millions of dollars on concepts only. Wall Street was alive with brokerage houses taking brand new companies, with inexperienced executives, through the IPO circus, garnering still more hundreds of millions of dollars. Investors were in the grasp of a Tulip Mania, throwing cash at every new stock issue as long as it had to do with the DotCom industry. But your chances of getting funded were still only about 1 in 1000-2000.

Back To the Present

That was then, this is now. And what are your chances today?

Ive spoken at length with a wealthy VC whos been investing for over 20 years. He consults with other VCs and VC Clubs, runs his own VC Club. He told me that the VC club ranks have been decimated since the DotCom debacle. I estimate that there are less than 15-20% of the numbers of VC clubs back in the 90s. And most of the names now were not on those lists then, he told me. The private investors are also a different lot and theyre far more cautious.

I asked him, Between the VC firms and clubs, what is your estimate of the number of companies being funded today? His reply was startling.

About one in ten thousand.

So those are your odds.

A Different Kind of Investor, A Different Kind of Entrepreneur

The Equity Investment Private Trust with which we work concentrates primarily on the quality of the Entrepreneur presenting the package. About 80% of their decision is based on that. As their US consultant said to me, A great project with a mediocre entrepreneur will lose money every time. Even a poor project, with a great entrepreneur, will make us money. If theyre both great, thats the ones were looking for.

The question for you, Mr. or Ms. Entrepreneur, is Are you that one in 10,000?