There's a strange trend sweeping through the online world of start-up blogging: VC's telling companies how to prepare a pitch. But if the current crop of angels and VC – even those with major successes – aren't out pitching for capital themselves, how much value can there be to their advice? Sure – they know what they want to see in a deal. A committed founding team. Early product traction. Low cost structure. A product riding a trend. Low valuation. First to market advantage. These things haven't changed since the earliest days of the web, and truly. But if we stripped these investor/bloggers of their honorifics, their track record and kereitsu – naked in the wild of the capital markets, could they raise money? I think not.

Loic Le Meur famously raised his capital from the Skype founders' VC Fund, Automico ($5.5 Million.) However, it's less know that Loic decided to raise the last $500,000 from a variety of power investors such as Michael Arrington, Steve Case, Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, and more. That's $500,00 from the top four power players in Silicon Valley? Imagine how hard it would be to raise that much capital if you didn't know those guys. Raising capital is hard, and we should take advice on how to do from people who actually do it all the time. In the same way that we would reluctantly take advice on how to play basketball from someone who had never played or how to ride a motorcycle from someone who did it once, many years ago, we should consider taking advice from VC whose job is to deploy capital, and rarely raise it. I think we should look to investment bankers and company CEO's for practical advice on raising money, as they are always active in the capital markets and truly have the practiced skills that are needed.