Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

These range from companies pitching me to portfolio companies presenting at board meetings. Almost always the CEO plus members of his or her management team including tech, marketing, sales and/or product. Here are some guidelines for you – particularly for VC pitch meetings. Summary : Teams matter.

Venture Capital 377

Venture Capital Slides Course Summary 377

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

I’d like to talk about Crocodile Salesmen in 3 scenarios: 1) when YOU are selling (or someone on your team), 2) when you are trying to recruit a sales person. But how to apply “listening&# in a sales meeting? Let’s assume you run a Customer Support software company. I still do this sometimes, too.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. If you haven’t read the other VC fund-raising posts I’ve done as part of this series you can find the whole outline and this first in the series here.]

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

When you raise money from investors you produce information that you are told they want and care about: A fund-raising deck that articulates your company strategy, plans, team, market, competitors and so forth. So what does a VC do when he or she isn’t ready to say “no” or perhaps might like to talk with you in a year but not now?

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

VCs strangely never seem to weigh in on other VC funds. As an entrepreneur I never really knew what to make of VC return data. But more importantly, VC returns are notoriously hard to measure at one point in time. Let me offer you an insider’s take. Now from Both Sides of the Table I know a thing or two.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Invest Funding Competition 264

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

If you are looking for money, this question will certainly come up in one form or another when you approach professional or organized angel or VC investors. And great management can morph a company to adopt without destroying the culture of the company in the process. A more complex answer. Concentrate on a world class team.

Venture Capital 120

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Ideas Summary 120

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

If you are looking for money, this question will certainly come up in one form or another when you approach professional or organized angel or VC investors. And great management can morph a company to adopt without destroying the culture of the company in the process. A more complex answer. Concentrate on a world class team.

Venture Capital 120

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Ideas Summary 120

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. Other founders, “as a privately held company we don’t disclose our valuation.&# Me, “dude, I’m not a journalist. The VC assumes you’ll have an option pool.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

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

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. And stop effing around trying to create a product company.&#. But it might not.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

And great management is able to morph a company to adopt without destroying the culture of the company in the process. What if you were the investor and someone walked into your office handing you a business plan executive summary that floored you with its brilliance?

Venture Capital 240

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Summary Incubator 240

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. Are you looking to potentially sell the company in the next year or two?

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

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

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. In the Early Days.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 16, 2011

It’s easy to think that the wife of a well-known & successful VC ( Fred Wilson ) would have had an easy and storied life of wealth and privilege. That’s why I was so interested in having “ The Gotham Gal &# come on This Week in VC ( video link on YouTube , download iTunes, episode 15) ) and dispel those myths.

Startup 311

Startup Sales Venture Capital Entrepreneur 311

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Many MBA programs still cater too much to the needs of large, corporate management jobs or prepare students to enter big consulting companies or investments banks. I got an email recently from my friend & fellow VC, Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston. My guess is that we are likely in total agreement.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. How you build out your team in the first few years can have a huge impact on the trajectory of your company. So I naturally spend much time with the companies in which I invest helping them: recruit. figure out roles.

Startup 388

Startup Slides Outsource Development Sales 388

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

I was recently interviewed for an article that appeared in Fast Company titled, “ Why you should start a business in LA.&# If you’re interested in the topic it’s worth a read, but I thought I’d elaborate on the topic since it comes up all the time. But we have a great city for building technology companies.

Company 290

Company Companies Technology Startup 290

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 6, 2023

If ten percent of these numbers, multiplied by your average product price, will get you the revenue you need to scale your business, you will get the love you need from angel and venture capital investors. Peruse company reports from your business domain.

Statistics 120

Statistics Research Report Newsletter 120

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2014

When I meet other VCs I’m constantly asking how they decide which investments to make, when to pass, when to do follow-on rounds, when to sell a company vs. when to go long, etc. Because I’ve asked more than 100 VCs similar questions I start to notice patterns in thinking. My job is just to be your sparring partner.

Startup 407

Startup Framework CTO Coach Sales 407

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2020

If ten percent of these numbers, multiplied by your average product price, will get you the revenue you need to scale your business, you will get the love you need from angel and venture capital investors. Peruse company reports from your business domain.

Marketing 157

Marketing Statistics Research Report 157

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

As a business advisor, I have to recommend even to established companies that they review and revamp their competitive strategy now, even if it appears to be working today. The real challenge is to win massive consumer preference repeatedly. These tolerate negative cash flows for growth. Create a team culture for personalized service.

Competition 142

Competition Software Review Social Media Customer 142

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2012

Your entrée to sales meetings. Helping with a Sales Lead. Usually it’s on behalf of a portfolio company. After all, if your VCs won’t help you get access to potential buyers or business development partners – what will they do? But the reality is that unfiltered intros just create work for the VC.

Email 359

Email Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 359

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. But issues do arise as your company grows. This applies to both founders and to VC’s that work with them.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

I’m very pleased today to announce that I invested, on behalf of GRP Partners, in Burstly alongside Rincon Venture Partners , an early stage VC in Southern California whith whom we love to work (and were our co-investors on RingRevenue ). I’ll explain in detail below. He knows the ad management and ad network businesses.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I know with a title like that I’m going to subject myself to people thinking I’m just being a grumpy, exclusive VC. I intro’d him to the COO of a growing tech company about maybe working together. And given that I travel enough and have dinners with portfolio companies, etc. That’s not the point.

Venture Capital 397

Venture Capital Startup Email Networking 397

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc. And because as a VC or as a CEO or senior exec you get presented to all the time we’re extra sensitive to it.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

And yes, VC’s, too. They have a wide set of existing relationships, they have teams of junior staff that cull databases (or increasing pile through LinkedIn), they are skilled in approaching prospective talent and they can “pre sell&# your company to get the recruit to the table in the first place. Recruiters. You name it.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2015

“the ecommerce company gained fauxmentum by raising artificially high amounts of venture capital and spent lavishly on customer acquisition despite long payback periods and questionable LTV” __. I’m not saying don’t hire sales staff or market your products aggressively. We live in heady times.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Customer Custom 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

Of course you could start your own company. As I talked about in “ Is it Time to Learn or Time to Earn ” – overwhelmingly the best economics go to those that start successful companies. Of course I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t start a company. For many people that’s the right answer.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC. Great companies are built by having great products. One great company, AppFolio , filmed all of this user interaction and made the DVD available to me. In SoCal we have Crosscut Ventures, Matt Coffin, Mike Jones, Klaus Schauser, etc. They might be as hard as raising VC.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

” If you don’t read any more of the post, the summary lesson learned for entrepreneurs is this: Product-centric founders often over-intellectualize their communications and therefore fail to sell their concepts to the masses. In a VC pitch this type of messaging will do just fine. Or what about your sales team?

Entrepreneur 370

Entrepreneur Startup Press Venture Capital 370

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2013

In part one I covered the need for early-stage enterprise software companies to build up professional services staff to ensure successful implementation projects. This goes against the conventional wisdom of VCs. For starters as a young enterprise software company you need to think about the customer segments you serve.

Customer 297

Customer Custom Pricing Startup 297

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. Clearly the founders and senior executives of a company are the most valuable resources and their time should be maximized on the most valuable tasks. Here’s the dilemma.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Metrics Startup Sales 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

If ten percent of these numbers, multiplied by your average product price, will get you the revenue you need to scale your business, you will get the love you need from angel and venture capital investors. Peruse company reports from your business domain.

Research 87

Research Marketing Statistics Report 87

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

I shifted my thinking a few years ago after I read Tim Ferris’s book The Four Hour Workweek (link is to a short summary I wrote). So I ask you – if you’re being reactive to somebody else’s emails are you really being as productive in your company as you could be? Can you please intro me to XYZ VC?

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

InfoChachkie

JUNE 23, 2011

What follows is a summary which paraphrases Jason’s responses. We started the company (because) …if you asked the average consumer what they think of the ads they see, if they see them at all, they are largely irrelevant and in many cases annoying. 5) Most great companies have inspiring Origin Stories. You guys never broke up.

Yahoo 210

Yahoo Startup Advertising Summary 210