For disruptive technology companies, the key is to become less disruptive in your adoption. For technology venture investors, the key is to minimize your cost of adoption to the buyers, which will drive your market adoption. Investing in the market before buyers is an expensive proposition for which there is a better use of funds.

Venture capital is a risk management game. Invest in a certain number of companies, expect a certain number will fail, but make sure you have a minimum number of “wins” sufficient to drive a return. Simple, right? Not really because the elephant in the room is adoption. Great technology, but unable to find a market, couldn’t capitalize on the early wins, couldn’t get it to market, beat by a weaker technology, bigger guys moved in, etc.

Let’s face it, if technology investing was really about “technology”, every venture firm would be really a R&D shop. Good technology is the first step in developing a technology company on the way to building a market to driving a return.

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