Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 19, 2009
On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. My blog was wiped out.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 29, 2023
The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. The investor perspective is that no manufacturing or inventory implies a minimal need for capital up front.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Startup Professionals Musings
AUGUST 3, 2020
The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. The investor perspective is that no manufacturing or inventory implies a minimal need for capital up front.
Xconomy
DECEMBER 14, 2018
The patent holder, the University of Toronto, gave companies the right to manufacture insulin. But the university also allowed them to patent the improvements they made, which enabled them to slap higher prices on each new version. In the nearly 100 years since insulin’s discovery, no generic version has become available in the U.S.
Xconomy
MARCH 17, 2017
I hit the airwaves Friday morning to talk venture capital, startups, self-driving cars, and March Madness. Stocks and Jocks , a Chicago-based weekday business and sports talk radio program, invited me on the show to share my thoughts on some of the latest trends in the startup world. I also made some biased predictions about.
SoCal CTO
JUNE 9, 2010
Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. You could just outspend. Tesla is not. It's a great talk.
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 14, 2017
I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. The rise of crowd funding saw the first wave of founders gleeful that they could raise capital without having to deal with terrible VCs.
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
274 
Let's personalize your content