Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. The typical VC process is as follows: They say there are three rules in property: Location, location, location. Of course there’s no exact number of VCs you should meet?—?these Same with VC. these are simply guidelines. To be clear?—?your

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Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2010

I’m often asked by people, “how do I get into VC?&# Well, I know 3-4 VC jobs that are publicly available. Every time I do recruiting I get somebody who says, “I’m willing to take a step back in my career to work in VC.&# This isn’t likely to appeal to us. Plus, show my you can write!

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Technical Review GRP Partners Email 290

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. If an accelerator is writing you they’re also writing 25 other VCs.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2010

They had received a term sheet from a VC and were wondering whether to work with this firm. This experience made me want to dig into my archives, re-write & publish this piece. I often tell people that raising venture capital is more difficult than getting married. Not so in venture capital.

Venture Capital 298

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Help 298

TechCrunch LA

JULY 2, 2020

When it comes to venture capital, Los Angeles is a city on the rise. In the past year, it’s seen one of the most profitable venture-backed exits of any tech ecosystem (with the $4 billion sale of Honey to PayPal) and investors are minting billion-dollar companies in the region at a torrid pace. Will Hsu, Mucker Capital.

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Los Angeles Venture Capital Capital Invest 277

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” “Ok, so this guy can write a blog and source deals but can he make any money?”

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

SoCal Tech Calendar

OCTOBER 31, 2016

Prior to co-founding Foundry Group (link is external), he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Brad is also a co-founder of Techstars (link is external).

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Writing Blogging Activity 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting. The “Triple Play&# of VC Presentations. I funded them 8 weeks later.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

TechCrunch LA

JULY 21, 2020

When Upfront Ventures partner Kara Nortman first met Natalie Portman a few years ago to talk about ways their non-profit organizations All Raise and Time’s Up could collaborate, she never realized they’d eventually be partners on a sports franchise.

Writing 171

Writing Los Angeles Equity Startup 171

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

When venture capitalists scale back investing activities it can be very swift and leave many companies that are in the process of fund raising hung out to dry. I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. Short answer – yes.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Startup Invest Funding 263

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

Generally speaking in venture capital financings the legal documents will specify that only “major investors” (a threshold set in the agreement – which can be $500,000 investor or more). We are doing what we do – writing larger checks and playing an active role at the company. You betcha.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2010

Last week at an angel investor forum I was privileged to meet Stephanie Spong, who is a Principal with EPIC Ventures, an increasingly rare early stage VC firm. Stephanie: I am a venture capitalist currently based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, with EPIC Ventures. Stephanie: I love building companies. Marty Zwilling.

Venture Capital 65

Venture Capital Capital Entrepreneur Competition 65

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” My favorite new VC blogger, Hunter Walk, weighed in with some thoughtful comments about how Syndicates might actually pit, “ angel vs. angel.” Bowery Capital).

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Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2013

Despite the increase in startup activity in Southern California, local venture capital funds are still few and far between, and a large chunk of the funding here is still from Sand Hill Road. Being so open, when entrepreneurs think about capital, we want to be top of mind. Tell us about the new fund? READ MORE>>.

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Funding Venture Capital Los Angeles Social Media 196

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

Every tech or major news journal in the country is preparing to write their Snap, Inc (creators of Snapchat, Spectacles, etc) stories and many of them seem to want a “How does it feel to have missed this investment story.” My job as a VC isn’t to beat myself up or any other partner up for the one deal we didn’t do. Mostly kidding.

Snapchat 214

Snapchat Invest Technical Review Dollar Shave Club 214

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. When should a VC invest? Start writing down predictions about people, companies, and markets. Between TechCrunch today and my former roles in venture capital, I’ve had the opportunity to practice timing a lot.

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Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. “This essay is dedicated to the great VC’s on my board who I am lucky to work with: Sameer Gandhi from Accel, Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed, and Kirsten Green from Forerunner. . Their data looks at tech VCs. Because they know him or her.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

There’s no straightforward road for Meta to follow, they have to blaze a trail where others are actively failing and keep the rest of their company together while they do so. I’ve been writing quite a bit about crypto lately, and this week I dug into a particularly interesting facet of the industry called DAOs.

Marketing 246

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

He eventually founded and sold consumer health firm ViSalus to a public company and is now back making investments, in technology companies, as a venture capitalist here at Los Angeles-based HashtagOne (www.hashtagone.com). I'm a bit of an anti-VC, as you know. It was really the same business, but with less capital.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

There are many times when being overly capitalized before you’re ready is a negative. Plus, most early-stage M&A fails so this isn’t likely a good use of capital for a young company). Availability of Capital. ” Whatever answers they have manufactured the only thing I hear is, “Because we can.”

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Chiefly, they thought that robotics and machine learning were going to transform everything from aerospace to industrial manufacturing and retail, and they saw Los Angeles as a unique location from which to deploy capital. But it’s not the capital that sets the firm apart, according to the pitch deck viewed by TechCrunch.

Los Angeles 126

Los Angeles Artificial Inteligence Invest Angel 126

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

VC's love to talk about their successes. Yet most VC's bury their failures under six feet of denial. In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. As noted in What Does VC Traction Really Mean? , What’s The Worst Mistake?

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

socalTECH

AUGUST 20, 2018

For this morning's interview, we sat down with Marlon Nichols , co-founder and Managing Partner of Los Angeles-based Cross Culture Ventures (crossculturevc.com). Marlon Nichols: We are a three year old, early stage venture capital firm. When I joined Intel Capital, it was the largest and most active venture firm in the world.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Invest Capital Startup 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. I have no money?

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

But knowing the right people and knowing a market only works well for angel investors in bullish tech markets in which IPO’s happen quickly (97-99) or where larger companies are actively scooping up little tiny companies at sub $50 million valuations to drive innovation (05-08, 10-?). got picked up early without raising a lot of VC.

Invest 284

Invest Angel Venture Capital Startup 284

socalTECH

MARCH 16, 2017

Earlier this week, Derek Norton , a long time advisor to the media, Internet, and technology industry in Los Angeles, announced a brand new venture capital fund called Watertower Ventures (www.watertowerventures.com). I hate to put us into the pre-seed and seed area, so I am saying literally, first institutional capital.

Invest 145

Invest Funding Capital Startup 145

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

One of the interesting things about being a VC is that you often see companies in transition. If you’re an early investor like I am that often means writing the first $2-3 million check into a business that previously had either survived on fumes or on a $500,000 angel round. You can do them all yourself, of course.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Yesterday I wrote Part 1 of the series on the changes to the software industry over the past decade that has led to changes in the venture capital industry itself. These trends have put pressure on traditional VCs. So VCs spent a couple of years experimenting with earlier-stage investing, which is OK. Funny, that.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Capital Software Startup 296

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. The VC industry is segmenting – I have spoken about this many times before. So in the past we needed VC to really get a startup going.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

InfoChachkie

JULY 23, 2012

Rejecting the paint-by-numbers approach to corporate communications deployed by most marketing executives, Brad has embraced unconventional guerilla marketing tactics to help establish his venture capital firm, Foundry Group, as a thought leader in early-stage tech investing. Write Your Own Playbook.

Marketing 233

Marketing Blogging Startup Venture Capital 233

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. Deal evaluations the Foundry way, which continues into a great discussion about VC decision-making processes. “So Is that when it became big?

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

socalTECH

AUGUST 30, 2016

The TCA said, if a TCA member had participated in all of its 305 investments, with a $25,000 investment in each of the companies in those investments (a total investment of $7.7M), that member would have received $12M in cash liquidity, have taken $2M in tax deductible write-downs, and still have $4.1M in active investments.

Tech Coast Angels 133

Tech Coast Angels Angel Truecar Southern California 133

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

Finally for startups there’s a $31 billion available for programs that give small businesses access to credit, venture capital, and R&D dollars. The sad fact is that water infrastructure in America has largely failed to keep up in large swaths of the country, necessitating this kind of massive capital infusion.

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2013

Yesterday I wrote a post about “ proprietary dealflow for VCs.” ” In the article I discussed the downside of raising capital at a too high of a price and referred people to a previous article I had written encouraging founders to raise “ At the Top end of Normal ” as opposed to stratospheric prices.

Pricing 302

Pricing Seed Funding Invest Venture Capital 302

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

But knowing the right people and knowing a market only works well for angel investors in bullish tech markets in which IPO’s happen quickly (97-99) or where larger companies are actively scooping up little tiny companies at sub $50 million valuations to drive innovation (05-08, 10-?). got picked up early without raising a lot of VC.

Invest 152

Invest Angel Venture Capital Startup 152