Sounds like an opportunity to create a social network for this tier of VC's that might not get the press of the big ones.

I wonder if there's a "Long Tail" of VC's that make the $50MM business their bread and butter.

I think that humans in general will minimize their workload and focus on the least amount of effort that can generate the greatest return. It does take a special breed to manage a portfolio of these small/midsized accounts.

BTW, Mark. Really like your blog! You're in my RSS reader

Just wanted to chime in on this thread. I agree that working in startups is very risky. We try to be upfront about that risk as a part of the hiring process as we feel some mentorship responsibility towards the people that we hire.

In addition to being upfront, we also work actively to maintain cutting edge skillsets so that in the event of a bad situation there's always an alternative path.

Fortunately this cycle is all about Javascript and Frameworks like ExtJS so a through understanding is an advantage