1. Your CEO is:

a) a visionary genius who led
other companies to IPOs or fat
acquisitions,
b) an astute leader who understands
today's business environment,
c) a competent manager whose
ideas are sometimes better than
yours,
d) one capacitor short of a
motherboard.

2. The offices of your company's
first-round venture capitalists
are located:

a) atop Sandhill Road;
b) in downtown NY, LA, or SF;
c) at an anonymous office park;
d) on the east side of the Fry's
parking lot, over there by the
taco cart.

3. How many rounds of financing
have you completed?

a) 3
b) 2
c) 1
d) Well, they let me expense the office
copy of Twisted Metal 21/2, so
they definitely do have money.

4. How would you describe your
business plan?

a) It leverages a truly unique
value add within a fast-ramping
space.
b) It presents an interesting,
plausible twist on a substantial
market.
c) If Microsoft ignores you, it just
might work.
d) It's really pretty funny when
you think about it in hindsight.

5. Lucy, Bob, and Ron are always
the last ones to leave your office
at night — they can hardly
keep up with their growing
workloads. They're in:

a) sales,
b) programming,
c) custodial,
d) accounts payable.

6. This year, your company will
have revenues of:

a) more than US$100 million,
b) more than $10 million,
c) more than $1 million,
d) that depends on what your
definition of revenues is.

7. The most recent legal document
your CEO signed was:

a) some sort of SEC filing,
b) a hush-hush strategic agreement
with someone code named Allen Paul,
c) a two-year lease renewal
on your current office space,
d) a last-minute revision to his will.

8. How many other companies
similar to yours are out there?

a) Two or three — enough to
validate the idea but not so
many that they crowd the field.
b) None: We're the first off the blocks.
c) It seems like every day I hear
about another one.
d) Considerably fewer than six months
ago; I was wondering what
happened.

9. Fill in the blank: My company
strives to be a leading-edge
player in the ________ game.

a) e-commerce
b) portal
c) content
d) dry chemicals

10. Your option's "strike price" is:

a) less than a buck a share — among
the lowest at the company;
b) less than $3.50 — fairly priced,
considering when you started;
c) somewhere less than $10 — not
as low as the person in the next
cubicle;
d) roughly equal to your age in
dog years.

11. Your VC's exit strategy is:

a) sticking it out until a public
offering,
b) selling the company
to an industry giant at the
first reasonable chance,
c) quietly folding you in with a
more promising member of the
keiretsu,
d) out the door, down the back
stairs, and into his Lexus.

12. Every day around 6:30 p.m.
your T1 line gets really slow.
This is because:

a) the commerce servers get
crushed with hits when your
e-store's Special Sale Item is
posted each evening,
b) your CEO is high-bandwidth
videoconferencing with Softbank
in Tokyo,
c) your hackers are all playing
Quake against some guys over
at Oracle,
d) it takes the mice that long to gnaw
through the Reynolds Wrap your CTO
"repaired" the line with at 9:30 a.m.

13. The reason your company lost
money last year was:

a) every sale made was a "loss leader" —
but market share doubled,
b) spiraling legal and banking costs
from acquiring so many competitors,
c) R&D expenses were much higher
than anticipated,
d) it really seemed like '98 was
finally going to be the multimedia
CD-ROM's big year.

14. In your gut, you feel:

a) your company is doing
something really big,
b) it's doing a good enough job in
the right place at the right time,
c) doubt,
d) unabated pangs of nausea from
abject terror.