VC’s always talk about the “deals” they have done.  The word is thrown
around like crazy and is ingrained into the VC vocabulary (deal flow,
deal pipeline, my deals etc).

I think “deal” is one of the ugliest words in the business.  It’s
really a terrible word for everyone.

For entrepreneurs, it belittles their companies and their personal
sacrifice.  I once even heard a prominant executive recruiter call his
placements “deals”.  I will never work with this guy.  Entrepreneurs
and executives are people. Their companies are their babies.  They
aren’t transactions.  They aren’t deals.

For LPs, it’s terrible because it connotes that the job is done when
the “deal” is closed. It’s obviously not – that’s when the work really
begins. For younger VCs, it creates a really bad motivation to “get
deals done”, which is not the objective of the game.

When I first started in this business, I saw that I was letting this
word creep into my vocabulary.  My former colleague Santo saw the word
in an offsite deck I was preparing and reminded me: “we don’t do
deals.  We make investments.”.

I want to strike this word out of the VC business.  Maybe no one else
cares, but there has to be something better.  ”Investments” works, but
it’s too long.  ”Opportunity Pipeline” is way better than deal flow,
but is too long as well.

Any other suggestions?  Let’s get rid of this ugly word.