In the next many months, this might be the new normal. Meeting founders for the first time over Zoom and making bigger efforts with personal reference checks. Perhaps, if investors have a wide network or have team members in various outpost offices (for e.g. for us in Singapore and Jakarta) and already know potential founders before hand, the time scale will stretch out less.
How do you read people over video within 15 mins?
Using voice, and verbal cues as signals to judge people.
How do you source and rely upon on your network’s references?
New skills need to be acquired to collect such data for decision making.
Finally, trends for your business will accelerate, which means the traditional way of managing venture capital funds will change quicker sooner. Whatever you think that will happen in 10 years will happening in the next few years. Be prepared.