By: Jesse Jones
Ideas Deserve Opportunity. You may be familiar with that phrase if you are a Fourscore client or if you’ve spent any amount of professional time with someone on the Fourscore team. I.D.O. is what this team believes – it is why we enjoy what we do every day.
At Fourscore, we have coined the term “opportunity event”, and we talk about them a lot. Opportunity events are significant transactions that represent a critical point in the life of a business – key strategic events like venture financings, M&A activity (buying/selling a business) and important license transactions. We internally track and study opportunity events and have an audacious goal for the number of opportunity events that we want to lead our clients through over the next 10 years. Our focus on opportunity events helps us stay rooted in our core belief that ideas deserve opportunity.
Ideas come from everywhere and everyone. Conventional wisdom says that ideas primarily come from the younger end of the world’s population. It is true that younger entrepreneurs get a lot of press, and it is both impressive and inspiring to see young people accomplish great things. I personally thought that most of the founders we work with are between the ages of 25-40. Imagine my surprise when after an internal review of opportunity events we found that it actually skews (significantly) older. More like 35-55, with several founders well into their 60’s.
Though initially surprising, I have observed that founders in mid to later life have more domain experience, typically have a stronger network and more of a financial cushion to get through the tough times involved in any new venture. If they are involved in a business that they are passionate about, all of those resources can be a great advantage. But the point is that ideas and the necessary execution to get those ideas to the next level are not produced solely by recent college grads, nor are those ideas subject to software-only labels.
At Fourscore, we work with businesses across multiple industries – from software to services businesses, IoT to hospitality (even beekeeping), and on and on. It is true that we work with a lot of venture-backed businesses, but in reality, our clients’ common thread is innovation. We look at each new potential client to find those that we believe in. Then we pour our effort and experience into giving that idea the best opportunity possible.
With that said, some ideas deserve more opportunity than others – apologies to these ideas, but you had your chance… On the opposite side of the table, there are a lot of seemingly stupid ideas that turned into incredible success stories. They can only laugh about it because they’ve hit so many home runs, but it is always interesting to hear about the deals that some of the nation’s top venture capital firms passed on: the “anti-portfolio”.
Whether you are young or old, have a technical software idea or a twist on an entrenched industry, grew up in the U.S. or immigrated, your Ideas Deserve Opportunity, and Fourscore would love to help.
Headquartered in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, Fourscore Business Law serves entrepreneurs and businesses in the Triangle, throughout the Southeast and in Silicon Valley / San Francisco. We also represent venture capital funds and other investors who invest in companies throughout the U.S. The idea of delivering maximum impact in a simple and succinct manner is what we’re calling the Fourscore Principle. And that is what Fourscore Business Law is based on. Our clients operate in a broad range of industries including tech, IoT, consumer products, B2B services and more. Questions? Shoot us an email or give us a call at (919) 307-5356. Your first call is on us.
