The VC Quarterly Survey
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What’s the most useful information we can offer our audience right out of the gate?
That’s a question we returned to regularly at dot.LA. Even early on, when our reporters were getting up to speed on their areas of coverage and not yet at a place where they could be breaking industry news on a regular basis, we looked for ways we could leverage information we had access to bring readers back to the site. Our co-founder happened to be a VC — a venture capital investor — deeply involved in funding companies in Los Angeles. In fact, many of our early readers were Los Angeles VCs. As funders of startups based in the city, they had a vested interest in ensuring a news outlet devoted to the local tech ecosystem succeeded, even if that meant seeing stories that were often critical of their companies. They also had information. Specifically, they knew which companies were getting funded, which were hiring or firing, and they were often the first to see pitch decks from early-stage (even stealth) startups that few had yet heard of. More than that, they had insider information on all of the companies in which they’d already invested; even if they were unwilling to share info on specific companies, they might be willing to provide an assessment of the local market. We saw a chance to collect and pool local data, and a way to create a basic barometer of sentiment around Southern California’s investing scene. |
The result became a quarterly “VC sentiment” report that was as useful to area startup founders and tech workers as it was to the VCs themselves. We kept the questions broad and in multiple choice and the surveys brief. VCs have little time and we wanted to ensure we got answers and didn’t spook investors by asking them to share more than they might want to (though we often followed up on them). We also let them know that, while we would publish the names of the participants, we wouldn’t share their answers specifically without asking them first.
Over the years, these reports became a regular feature of our coverage which were reliably among our best performing stories (and oftentimes a great source for new newsletter subscribers). Because we always asked the same questions, we also amassed historical data on investor sentiment. They also allowed our venture reporter time and space to reconnect with area VCs on a quarterly basis. Later, we expanded the questionnaire to include queries about the fastest rising local startups, VCs and other entities that became separate stories. Eventually, that coverage became a crucial section on the site. |
