Steven Blank posts and article at Entrepreneur Corner on How to be a better venture capitalist: Run a startup. Steve suggest that to be a good VC, the VC needs to have run a startup. Today, you can build a mobile, cloud, or web company for $500,000. The startup can have 10,000 customers and deliver product in less than a year (inconceivable and amazing). Running a startup gives a VC an insight into the realties of how hard startup life can be.