Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. It’s insanely competitive to get into our industry so most have degrees from institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and University of Chicago (blatant plug ;-). And so is venture capital. Connections?

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. “COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Berkonomics

MAY 29, 2014

Included in a business plan are financials, competitive landscape, marketing plans, and projected sales to name a few. Assists you in raising capital. In addition, it helps you focus your ideas and determine how to best manage your available resources including capital, cash, and people. assess past performances.

Startup 166

Startup Guide Help Mentor 166

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2: As expected at least one person accused me of writing this post because I want to see lower valuations. As an early stage investor you’re often planning around 10x your investment at the time your write your first check so in this case you’d be going into your investment expecting an exit of $800 – $1.2

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

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

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage.

Services 72

Services Startup Training Writing 72

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. Remind me why I love you?

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Jeff Carmody, Co-Founder of Agility Capital and a successful institutional investor, provided me with the outline shown below. Distribution and Sales. Competition. Capitalization. Who do I write the check to and where do I send it? A restaurant is a generally appropriate for a bank, but not an Angel investor.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

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. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Your competitive advantage. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition.

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

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. ” I believe firmly in capital efficiency in the early days.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2014

On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage.

Services 105

Services Startup Training Writing 105

From the Venture Trenches

MARCH 27, 2013

The recent firing of Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason is a cautionary tale of the increased scrutiny and heightened expectations that come from accessing increasingly larger amounts of investment capital. Is outside capital really required? Who should you approach, “friends and family”, passive investors or value added institutions?

Venture Capital 45

Venture Capital Capital Anthem Startup 45

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2014

We caught up with CEO and co-founder Brett Rossman to learn more about the company and how it''s been able to grow, profitably, all without raising a dime of outside capital. We generate thousands of new customers everyday for clients such as Ally Bank, GE Capital, Transunion, and a few other big brands.

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239

InfoChachkie

JUNE 4, 2012

As an entrepreneur, I helped create companies which achieved two IPOs and two trade sales totaling $385 million. Rationale: My idea is so mind-blowingly fantastic that I must immediately spend some of my precious capital to protect it. Public relations at a startup is a sales process. Secure Your Intellectual Property Too Early.

Entrepreneur 272

Entrepreneur Outsource Ideas Technical Review 272

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2016

On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage.

Services 61

Services Startup Training Writing 61

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Your competitive advantage. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. The problem is that stakeholders, like marketing and sales, don’t know what the latest version of the roadmap is.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2012

Alain Theriault, better known as StartupCoach , tells entrepreneurs that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start by writing a cook book (business plan), you work in the kitchen for a while, you learn some tools of the trade, you experiment with a few recipes, you test on willing clients. then you can start writing a recipe.

Startup 96

Startup Writing Metrics Marketing 96

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 I just reviewed several hundred startup pitches for Capital Factory. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why. Take a look at the chart below.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Most advisors will tell you to write the business plan first (20-30 pages), then distill the key points into a set of Microsoft PowerPoint slides for standup presentations to potential investors. Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer. Exit strategy.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

I remember just a decade ago in 2003 when we all laughed at how dumb people in the 90′s were talking about the race to “capture as many eyeballs as possible” before your competition. Should I write off my $2.5 I know it’s not as sexy as a faster growth rate and a larger round of capital. Let’s see.

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

…” I’ll write soon on my views of why I believe Instagram took off as a social network and what I think comes next. 99.9999% of you won’t be contemplating raising capital at $500 million any time soon or selling for a billion. My friend Christin Herron of Intel Capital weighed in on the issue.

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2011

Alain Theriault, better known as StartupCoach , tells entrepreneurs that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start by writing a cook book (business plan), you work in the kitchen for a while, you learn some tools of the trade, you experiment with a few recipes, you test on willing clients. then you can start writing a recipe.

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Metrics 91

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. It’s the same as in any sales-oriented meeting and make no mistake raising money is sales.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2018

Wildlink is backed by Mucker Capital. If I write back, and tell them to stay at the Marriott in Del Mar, we would detect the Marriott Del Mar in your message, whether that's on Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, in a text message, in an email, or whatever, and convert that into a link to one of our merchants who are part of the Wildfire network.

San Diego 159

San Diego Social Media Commerce Snapchat 159

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2013

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. These commitments should always be positioned in writing as promissory notes, or so-called bridge-loans, which convert to equity at a rate determined by later investors.

Startup 97

Startup Entrepreneur Equity Examples 97

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

What better than to have capital from somebody who has actually done it in the trenches? Matt’s commitment to re-investing in tech startups is reminiscent to this great Fred Wilson post of “recycling capital. &#. Big thank you to Darius Vasefi , of EyeOnJewels for the write up. He told them it was now or never.

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Your competitive advantage. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition.

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. If no financing happened then this “note&# may not be converted and thus would be senior to the equity of the company in the case of a bankruptcy or asset sale.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. I guess that makes USV, Spark Capital, Foundry Group, Accel, Benchmark, Revolution (along with several others) pretty happy right now. source: Capital IQ. source: Capital IQ. Still, market amnesia by ordinarily rational actors always surprises me. I believe that.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 10, 2010

“Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, Not uttered by base sale of chapmen’s tongues” . Patents held by startups generally have a limited ability to reduce competition. Intellectual Property (IP) is an ugly thing at a startup.

IP 256

IP Patents Company Companies 256

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. For businesses like this, finding new ways to drive more of these high-value inbound sales calls is key. Who do you view as your biggest competition?

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How To Pitch A Product - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , August 4, 2010 I've said a bunch of times on this blog that the perfect pitch is a very short intro to provide context followed immediately by a demo. We had to write a CRM to keep track of them all. There is no competition. What’s going to happen in the future?'

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

We’re a national venture capital investment firm but with our roots firmly in Los Angeles. But putting no time into anchoring your beliefs because you’re too busy executing sales, marketing, support, product & engineering is an easy recipe for leadership drift. I wanted to just write. I like writing.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150