Top accelerators have already needed to adapt their strategy in the face of stiff competition to become ‘outbound machines’. Similarly, it feels like PE firms also undertake mainly outbound sourcing as well — constantly ‘hunting’ for the next deal. It’s about time VCs joined the outbound party.
Interestingly, the vast majority of corporates are also sticking to an inbound strategy— hoping their brand and size will be enough to attract top startups. I’m guessing in the near future the best corporate innovators will look at sourcing startups as a core competency, maybe even before VCs?
As Kirill Bigai said, the downside to outbound is it can feel cold and more data gathering than relationship building. That seems to happen when junior staff (analysts) are ‘hitting the phones’ and at times compensated for quantity of deals sourced opposed to quality or number invested in.
