Our venture capital fund (alt protein) recently did training into forecasting and decision making (based on approach from Superforecasting, How to Decide, The Scout mindset).
As a result, we’re currently revamping our evaluation process to attempt to reduce bias and explicitly think in terms of scenarios, probabilities and expected value return multiples, rather than our old approach of guesstimating the likely outcome and scoring around that single scenario (we’re also participating in some forecasting exercises to help us understand possible paths for the technology in more detail)
So far the key obstacles are to figure out how to adopt these new techniques without spending vastly more time in analysis, leaving us less time on generating dealflow and also making founders wait longer for feedback and go/​no go decisions.
Another practical challenge is the actual nuts and bolts of how to take various expert inputs and then actually come up with the predictions (Superforecasting doesn’t really go into the details).
May I ask who provided the forecasting training? My team is also interested in training to reduce bias and think more probabilistically. We’ve all read Superforecasting and Scout Mindset, etc. Ready to make it practical!
Our venture capital fund (alt protein) recently did training into forecasting and decision making (based on approach from Superforecasting, How to Decide, The Scout mindset).
As a result, we’re currently revamping our evaluation process to attempt to reduce bias and explicitly think in terms of scenarios, probabilities and expected value return multiples, rather than our old approach of guesstimating the likely outcome and scoring around that single scenario (we’re also participating in some forecasting exercises to help us understand possible paths for the technology in more detail)
So far the key obstacles are to figure out how to adopt these new techniques without spending vastly more time in analysis, leaving us less time on generating dealflow and also making founders wait longer for feedback and go/​no go decisions.
Another practical challenge is the actual nuts and bolts of how to take various expert inputs and then actually come up with the predictions (Superforecasting doesn’t really go into the details).
Hi Simon,
May I ask who provided the forecasting training? My team is also interested in training to reduce bias and think more probabilistically. We’ve all read Superforecasting and Scout Mindset, etc. Ready to make it practical!
Sure, we self studied from an agenda that the two of us put together:
- those 3 books
- some clearer thinking modules (great resource)
- practicing forecasting on metaculus
- reading some other articles and interviews
Here’s a doc with all the details (also contains book notes if it’s of info)