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. I funded them 8 weeks later.

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Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

I plan to write about it early next year when we’re all through. 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.

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Blogging Press Entrepreneur Venture Capital 420

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. I will add to this as I write more in the coming weeks on the topic. Is Funding a Worthy Announcement? The short answer is yes, absolutely.

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

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. They know the VCs so they know what interests them.

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Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

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. I LOVE writing. But writing takes more time and some days I don’t have that. I do these, too.

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Snapchat Blogging Venture Capital Writing 200

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. If I check Twitter it’s usually because I’m waiting for a meeting to start and I never write posts during the day. I don’t think any serious VC or angel thought it was “collusion.&#

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Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

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

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

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.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

The final clip is Fred & I talking about whether “the best product wins” and my assertion that the bias in today’s Silicon Valley dominated tech world there is probably too much emphasis on tech at the expense of how to sell, implement and service customers. You can’t time VC investing markets.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Writing Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

.” Here’s what I mean … Let’s start with what it takes for a journalist to want to write a story. Do I have an “angle” from which to write the story (first company to do X, company does biggest X, consumer behavior is doing X)? I am a VC. I hand out money. How differentiated is that?

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

You need a great concept in which you will build something that is truly unique and that will be valued by your customers. I only say that because after years as a VC I can always tell when my peer group invested in something because “it seemed like it would make money” versus when they invested out of passion.

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Venture Capital Startup Course Entrepreneur 373

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about The Silent Benefits of PR in which I pointed out that most young companies I encounter don’t fully grasp the benefits of PR because they are less measurable than product milestones or customer acquisition analyses (like CAC/LTV). It super charges a business that is closer to product delivery.

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Press Startup Writing Training 319

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.

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Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

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.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

This is a post I’ve been dying to write for 18 months. And if you are – what on earth are you reading such a boring blog as this?!? OK, that sounds like an interesting business, but nothing to write a freakin’ blog post about? You fish where your customers are. Everyone always asks why I blog.

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Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

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.

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Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 23, 2011

Obviously you should have somebody that helps you research journalists, gets you meetings, pitches stories, helps prep you for interviews & helps make sure your writing is cogent. And as a result their competitors were able to raise a considerable VC round from well-known firms. In a startup this is a mistake.

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Startup Writing Press Blogging 349

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

JUNE 1, 2011

And even the best teams combined to create big innovations sometimes don’t time markets well, are surprised by unexpected technology breakthroughs by competitors or just don’t find the magic the leads to mass customer adoption. That was back when VCs weren’t so quick to respond to emails. I did that? Back to zero.

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Startup Blogging Venture Capital Writing 391

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Your goal should be to turn your VCs into extended members of your team to get real value from them. Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. What Rob wrote in his post is right. Rob does it.

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Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2014

This blog started from a series of conversations I found myself having over and over again with founders and eventually decided I should just start writing them.It When second place isn’t good enough because we live in winner-take-most markets. The desire to be better than anybody else in one’s field.

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Competition Startup Writing Marketing 394

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. PHONE CALLS.

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Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

By definition, you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I recently read a book I’d highly recommend to every reader of this blog called “ Yes, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive &# by Robert B. Every angel, seed investor or VC is influenced by who else is talking with you, who else is investing in you and they (we) are all influenced by who introduced us to you.

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Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 11, 2011

We talked about a lot of great stuff in the video including how to do sales calls and a how a new “culture of writing&# is emerging as a critical skill set in business today. We also talked about why Jon decided to leave Google to become an EIR at a VC firm (Polaris) – minute 33. Good comment community = viral blog.

Buzzfeed 354

Buzzfeed Content Tips Blogging 354

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. Brad on blogging. How did you start blogging? “My I decided well if I am going to be investing in this stuff at least I need to understand what it’s like to have a blog, to be generating content, and it was quite interesting at the very, very beginning.“. was starting.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

I said, ''Hey, listen were going to start writing this newsletter and it''s going to highlight our trials and tribulations, our failures and our successes. The opening paragraphs of that first newsletter are indicative of the captivating and accessible writing style, which eventually cultivated a huge audience. blogging, in a sense.

Newsletter 233

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 233

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

Also be careful about VCs. But once a VC has heard your idea he can’t “un-think&# it. Marketing futures can be really good for enterprise software companies where the information is passed between sales rep and potential customer in terms of near-term roadmap. You’re reading their press releases or blog posts.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. Writing a book will be fun. Stuart is well worth following on Twitter & now that’s he’s a VC he is likely to share his wisdom more freely. David is also frequently an inspiration for a story on my blog.

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CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

You’re writing a freaking blog post! Customer support – After my pre-breakfast meeting I had my actual breakfast meeting. Plus, he’s a loyal reader of this blog. But it’s mostly customer service. Can you please intro me to XYZ VC? I never get grumpy that people write.

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

Tonight I was reading a good blog post ( here ) from Sean Powers with Alistair Croll on preparing yourself for the TC50 “bump” – the rise in traffic that a company gets from presenting at TechCrunch 50. We instructed customers about how eCommerce was going to change their future. I’ll talk about all that in a future post.

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. blog here ). Same as I felt.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

I wrote this conundrum and the need to take charge of how the market define your skills in my much-read blog post on “ personal branding.” Even when you do sign-up initial customers it’s still not clear that your company will be a success and you’re still likely paying yourself under market rates.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

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. They are venture bankers not investment bankers.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

I got an email recently from my friend & fellow VC, Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston. Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. In Summary.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

I said, ''Hey, listen were going to start writing this newsletter and it''s going to highlight our trials and tribulations, our failures and our successes. The opening paragraphs of that first newsletter are indicative of the captivating and accessible writing style, which eventually cultivated a huge audience. blogging, in a sense.

Newsletter 133

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 133