I had breakfast with James Slavet of Greylock recently and asked him how many deals he sees on a regular basis.

mw: “So how many deals do you see a year?”
js: “I meet about 300 companies a year. Most are screened prior to me meeting them.”
mw: “And how many of those do you think are any good?”
js: “Maybe 30 are interesting and will get funding from some one. I’d say 3-4 are actually what I would call good ideas.”

How about that? Greylock gets access to the best business plans in Silicon Valley — we’re not talking the napkin sketch variety. Greylock attracts real deal entrepreneurs. They know how to write a plan, and they wouldn’t be pitching it, if they didn’t believe.

The takeaway? Economics of the Valley and most speculative businesses are based on serious flow. 4 out of 300 are sure winners? How many well formed plans does the average head of strategy, marketing or innovation in a big company see in a year? Ten? Twenty? Okay, let’s be generous and say 50. Any way you count it, there simply ain’t enough flow in today’s corporate organizations.

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