The NYTimes has an article on the developing habit of venture capitalists asking their children for opinions on consumer-facing web services. The article is generally disparaging about the VC due diligence process.

It’s no secret that this practice occurs. For many web services these days, asking the children of venture capitalists for their opinions is as good as a customer call because many of these web services target children. That being said, I hope the companies (whether they be potential deals or portfolio companies) aren’t relying on VC’s children as their only source in the user feedback loop (which the article implies in the case of StarDoll). Ad hoc opinions from the child of a venture capitalist is no substitute for a thorough round of user testing.

The article claims the increasing practice of VCs asking children for their opinions is based on the following environment change:

Then, investors were immersed in the very technology they were financing, ordering books on Amazon, downloading music from Napster and buying and selling on eBay. But now, in the so-called Web 2.0 era, venture capitalists’ personal interests have strayed from the sweet spot of innovation: Web sites like MySpace intended to connect people, free Internet calling tools like Skype or software for mobile phones.

I disagree with the reasoning behind this statement (though the conclusion is close to right). Successes in both web 1.0 and 2.0 require significant technical innovation (particularly in scalability and unique leverage of accepted open standards). It’s not like technical due diligence is irrelevant today. That being said, a strong user experience and presentation layer on top of technical innovation is more important than ever (more so in 2.0 than in 1.0). The increasing importance of user experience requires VCs to look outside their own personal opinions and experiences.

I wonder if VCs interest in user experience will ever go so far that VCs will installs user testing labs in their firms. That would make me happy considering my background in usabililty :)