Challenges Juggling the MBA-Friend and VC Firm-Allegiance Roles

There’s such hunger amongst the HBS graduate population to start companies that suddenly being on the VC side of the table presents tricky situations with classmates. Section friends start pitching you their startup ideas, and they’re just as (un)likely to be investable ideas as the rest of the startups out there. Juggling the HBS-friend and VC firm-allegiance roles is not easy. You want to be honest with friends, and you want to encourage their entrepreneurial aspirations, but it’s hard sometimes to balance telling friends how cool their ideas sound with the reality that they’re not cool/ready/big enough for you to go to bat in front of the general partnership on their behalf.