Art Of The Start
Turning Challenges Into Opportunities
Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is an entrepreneur, author and the chief executive of Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital investment bank for tech firms. Guy will provide expert answers to all your questions about starting a business.

I work with three other partners on a small Boston-based startup. One of our partners has been living abroad for the past 18 months in France. This hasn't impacted our working relationship for the worse--she's still active via e-mail and teleconferences. Will VCs frown on our having a partner overseas?

I wouldn't bring it up in the first part of the first meeting, but it might not be a deal killer if other aspects of your startup are super interesting. You could position this as "outsourcing development" to a country with cheaper labor, but that might not fly with France being the country. You are, however, making it harder to get funding. Your arrangements are not typical or ideal from an investor's point of view.

You've mentioned that "ideas are easy, implementation is hard," but I still find that I am paranoid about sharing too much with potential investors. It's not that I think my idea will seem so spectacular to others, but that I am so in love with the project myself. Any advice on how to overcome this fear?

Find a good therapist.

My project is dedicated to helping teens in lower-income brackets. However, I am not registered as a nonprofit. Will VCs take me seriously so long as I have a solid business plan, even if I don't have nonprofit status?

Is this a trick question? VCs will not take you seriously if you are a nonprofit organization. VCs are not interested in not-for-profit organizations, though they frequently invest in for-profit companies that don't make money, but not intentionally.

First, I just want to say that your column is a pleasure to read. Could you please enlighten us with an example from your own history in the VC/startup space? What was one of the early challenges that you were able to overcome that might inspire the rest of us?

With a lot of help from others in the Macintosh Division of Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ), I was able to convince developers to create products for a computer without an installed base. Does that qualify? If you need a more recent example from my current VC career, I would point you to BitPass. This is a micropayments company that enables organizations to sell digital content. I met the founder at a legal seminar. He is a dropout from a Stanford Ph.D. program as is his co-founder. The company was pre-revenue, but it was a "swing for the fence idea" that could change the business model of the Internet. That's my kind of deal.