skin in the game
"Skin in the game" is a key concept that investors frequently use as part of their assessment of the management team of a new company. Investors are looking for entrepreneurs who have a large personal stake in making sure that their business venture succeeds. Perhaps the single most important evidence of skin in the game is that the entrepreneur has invested a significant and meaningful percentage of their net worth in the company. This gives investors confidence that the entrepreneur will be motivated to succeed.
The origin of the phrase is not completely known at this point but the pundits believe that the "skin" simply refers to a person and the "game" refers to the business venture. So the phrase "skin in the game" means that the entrepreneur is putting his or her actual person (meaning literally his or her body and figuratively his or her reputation and wealth among other things) at stake in the new business venture. At Early Stage Legal, we could see this term deriving from Poker where a player literally wagers his or her own life by putting it into the kitty. Not a bad metaphor for starting a new venture...