Venture Capital Investing: The Complete Handbook for Investing in Small Private Businesses for Outstanding Profits (Hardcover)

~ David Gladstone (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Financial Times/Prentice Hall (December 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0139414282
• ISBN-13: 978-0139414282
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #962,610 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly useful presentation of the investor's perspective, January 10, 2000

By A Customer

You might not expect a book published 12 years ago to be all that useful in creating your zippy new high-tech Internet-based business plan. But because it describes the perspective of the investor who is considering the commitment of other people's money into a small business, this book is indeed extraordinarily useful and well worth the price.

The book does not tell you how to create a sure-fire business plan -- that kind of information needs to come from a source that relates to your industry and type of business.

What this book does do, and very successfully, is compile the enduring fundamentals: including 80 pages of questions used in due diligence, 40 pages of sample investment documents, to name two examples. And these are just the appendices that follow 250 pages of investor-to-investor discussion of what to look for and what works on the front lines of venture capital investing.

This book is not written for the entrepeneur, which is exactly why it is so useful if you are writing a business plan. If you are an entrepeneur who is good at thinking through both sides of business deals, this book gives you a lot to work with in trying to understand how you and your proposals will be considered by a venture capital investor.

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners, not those serious about private equity, January 25, 2000

By	John F. Dascher (Fort Lauderdale) - See all my reviews

This book is good for beginners who want to know more about the VC process, but it needs to be updated for modern practices. It also needs to be edited for gramatical errors, which I found unacceptable given the price of the book.

If you are truly interested in private equity either as a student, angle investor, or professional, then I recommend a book by Josh Lerner: "Venture Capital & Private Equity - a Casebook". It is very thorough and modern.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Conservative, old-school material, mostly checklists., July 8, 2000

By A Customer

This book is not geared toward modern, big-ticket, ultra-risky venture capitalists. You won't find any eBay case studies here, nor any advice on how to finance such.

Instead, the author's focus has a small-time, mezzanine debt flavor. Think lower-risk, low to mid-tech deals; smallish companies, such as printers, with existing business models and revenue streams, in search of expansion capital.

The proposed structures are safe (secured, convertible debt) and the bulk of the book consists of due diligence checklists.

The writer's conservatism is both the virtue and the limit of this book. Depending on your needs and beliefs, you'll find it either reassuring and methodical, or stodgy and old-fashioned.