Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I believe these VC funds have suffered some amount of reputation fall out. Let me explain: 1.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Invest 265

InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

The steps outlined below represent an ideal approach to raising capital from sophisticated investors. You might be at Step 2 with one VC and Step 3 with another. VCs collude all the time, it is only fair that entrepreneurs compare notes every now and again as well.”. Subscribe to their blog. The keyword here is authentic.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Capital Research Customer 236

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. Since I answer this all the time anyway I thought it might make an interesting blog post. But let’s face it, as a VC you spend time with whichever companies you want.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros. Partner Leverage.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

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. I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. But take prompts from the VC.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

As I’ve written about before, You’d Have to be a Big Baby to Complain about Being a VC. Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. I didn’t want to disappoint my customers. And I’m happy as a VC.

Blogging 420

Blogging Press Entrepreneur Venture Capital 420

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

I recently wrote a piece for Mashable on how to create a company blog. Since it’s already written (and since I promised not to republish on my blog other than a summary) if you’re interested please have a read over there. Summary notes and then I’ll extend: Should you blog? What should you blog about?

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. I’m not a doomsday guy, but just believe that we won’t see a V shaped recovery, which could make VC funding more difficult for tech start-ups (don’t shoot the messenger!).

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Startup Funding Technical Review 269

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures).

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

And for a select few entrepreneurs, they are able to go out and raise the venture capital they need and make their dreams a reality. So, what it is about these select few entrepreneurs, and what do they do that makes them successful in raising venture capital? And then go back to venture capitalists later.

Venture Capital 93

Venture Capital Capital Invest Entrepreneur 93

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage? What price?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Guide CTO Coach Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

Nearly four months ago we rebranded at Upfront Ventures. You can watch the video above for a very brief overview of why we rebranded and where we see our place in the VC ecosystem along with what has changed in our industry. Relaunching our brand is part of our larger initiative to build a VC firm of the future.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Startup Blogging Platform 324

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition | For Entrepreneurs , February 2, 2010 Looks at the critical equation around customer acquisition cost vs. customer lifetime value similar to what I discussed in Startup Metrics but in more depth. Great stuff. Jason looks at the issues around "sunk cost."

Pricing 150

Pricing Acquisition Customer Custom 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She hasn’t raised any venture capital. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. She focused on her customer. So Tracy began keeping a blog about … (what else?) That may soon change.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Friday, March 9, 2007 Map of VC Investments Found this Map of 2006 VC Investments post. Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. Some very interesting graphics including this heat map: Very cool visualization tool!

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Invest CTO Coach Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. In particular I tried to do most of the “entrepreneur advice on VC” up front so that if you don’t want to watch our views on the deals you don’t have to. They sponsor TWiVC.

Venture Capital 214

Venture Capital Startup Design S3 214

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. Putting customers first. Legendary customer support. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. You could just outspend. You could use brute force to get the word out.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2009

Handling PR with VCs. This is part of my series on How to Raise VC but could equally be filed under Startup Advice more generally. Just notice how many VC emails you get after your TechCrunch article or after you were on stage at TC50. In your VC pitch your PR page should take no longer than 30 seconds – Wait.

Venture Capital 291

Venture Capital Press News Startup 291

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy news pertaining to startups and venture capital. Landline , the operator of a bus network in the Midwest, is one of the latest companies to raise venture capital. Ginkgo Bioworks raises capital at a $4B valuation.

Services 207

Services Startup Venture Capital Redpoint 207

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

One of the advantages of blogging, using social media, public speaking, etc as a VC is that you get a more nuanced view of these shifts by watching your own successes and failures. They know that there some implicit legitimacy (rightly or wrongly) to your story since a VC just wrote you a $10 million check.

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. “I don’t know the exact math, but I hear it again and again: the top 2% of firms generate 98% of the returns in venture capital.” As you can see from the chart their data suggests there are about $25 billion of VC distributions per year in the US. Their data looks at tech VCs.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

It’s apropos because there is so much noise these days with email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, web shows, etc. I was thinking back to a few previous “insider baseball&# blog debates that raged for several weeks: AngelGate (aka Bin38 secret cabal), convertible debt vs. equity, bubble vs. not, and now the AngelList discussion.

Email 287

Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

As a VC with scores of startups in our portfolio we have ringside seats to many, many fund raising processes plus I had to raise money across about 5 different rounds of capital as an entrepreneur so I’ve developed some thought on the process that I hope can be helpful to some of you before you start. Let me give you an example.

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. You are particularly vulnerable if: You have revenue concentration (few customers each providing a large total of percentage of your revenue). ” I highly recommend reading it. Growth vs. Profitability.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2016

I remember the same disdain from people when I started blogging or using Twitter. Why would a VC do that? A bit like a blog that is put out regularly but not overly edited or self-conscious about word choices or typos. So it provides me with a less crowded audience than publishing on: blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Snapchat 200

Snapchat Blogging Venture Capital Writing 200

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Thursday, March 22, 2007 Discussion Creation Among Bloggers - LinkedIn, Blogging and Discussion Groups Ive been participating in a Yahoo Group that are users of LinkedIn and who are Bloggers: [link] Its an interesting group of folks from diverse backgrounds. See Five Things Meme as an example.

Blogging 150

Blogging CTO Coach CTO Hire Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

This thinking is largely driven by the venture capital industry (and subsequently Wall Street) who are in search of high margin, highly scalable businesses. It’s nearly impossible to get a services company financed by VCs. Why Shouldn’t Most Services Businesses Raise VC? It may be the right answer for you.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

socalTECH

MAY 29, 2013

In a blog post Wednesday, CEO John Patzakis said that X1 hasd recently "enjoyed the support" of a number of investors, who have enabled the company to double down on its support of current customers and focus on development of its next generation search and discovery software. X1 Discovery is one of the companies out of Idealab.

Idealab 147

Idealab Tool Pasadena Venture Capital 147

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2017

People expect blog posts, Tweets, panels, speeches. Taking tons of VC meetings is relatively easy but getting 1 or 2 to truly engage is much harder and takes total focus. Recruiting, business development, shipping product, writing blog posts, networking … it’s all the same. The modern world is daunting.

Activity 297

Activity Blogging Email Startup 297

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC.&# Getting a meeting with a prominent angel or VC is difficult enough. Some advice on how to do that was covered in this link – Getting Access to a VC. If you haven’t read how to build VC relationships and demonstrate traction make sure to read it.

Venture Capital 277

Venture Capital Startup Email News 277

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. And that person has almost certainly chosen specifically to be a startup lawyer over serving other types of customers because he or she enjoys working with entrepreneurs. VENTURE CAPITAL. And finally that brings me to obvious topic of venture capital.

Startup 363

Startup Venture Capital Coach Press 363

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc.

Startup 279

Startup Venture Capital Tips Custom Development 279

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2015

If you’re an investor considering putting dollars in the ground in LA, you can see that there is a tremendous opportunity both because of the growth of our markets and there are fewer VC funds here relative to the opportunity than anywhere else in the country. We are a customer. You were right, Alex , he is a superstar.

Marketing 150

Marketing Newsletter Venture Capital Blogging 150

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

JANUARY 14, 2014

In fact 61% of all mobile searches where a customer contacts a business it is via a phone call (source: Google). It’s why the first company I ever invested in as a VC – Invoca – just announced a $20 million funding by Accel Partners. People don’t want to speak to customer service reps. Enter phone calls.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

The major battle for press is a battle for “mindshare” and it’s exactly the reason I blog. I am a VC. Consider this blog post titled, “ Christmas 2012 Shatters More Smart Device and App Download Records.” I hand out money. How differentiated is that?

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389