Planner Reads

Mark Suster (one of the best VC blogs) has a post up on Tenacity. He says:

Tenacity is probably the most important attribute in an entrepreneur.  It’s the person who never gives up – who never accepts “no” for an answer.  The world is filled with doubters who say that things can’t be done and then pronounce after the fact that they “knew it all along.”

I agree with Mark that tenacity is a key attribute in successful entrepreneurs. It’s hard to see it in a person in the short “get to know you” period you have on many investment opportunities. But if you can get to know an entrepreneur over a longer period of time, you can see it.

Avner Ronen, co-founder and CEO of Boxee, showed a lot of tenacity to me a few years back. As I outlined in the post announcing our investment in Boxee, Avner originally pitched us in mid 2007. At that time, they were pitching a hardware play. I said no. Then he came back in early 2008 with an open source software play. I said, “better, but no users”. Then he came back in the summer of 2008 with ...