Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2019

Do you think that the CEO of Google should answer every written letter he receives? I know it may feel this way since I’m writing this tongue in cheek. The person writing things he or she is doing me a favor. They had to physically write a letter, address it, put a stamp on it (pay) and then put it in the mailbox.

Email 250

Email Writing Conference Mobile 250

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Or if you’re a VC raising from LPs you have to list all of your deals, your investment value, your carrying value, your multiples, your IRRs, TVPIs, DPIs, etc along with net cashflows plus your previous LPAs. These collective sets of documents form the basis of what somebody looking at investing would call “financial due diligence.”

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2019

Equally important, if someone does find your site, your content must stand out above all similar sites, to keep visitors engaged, close a sale, and get customers to return. These days, customers want two-way relationships, and people who follow your writing will feel this bond. Hone your writing style for all communication.

Blogging 85

Blogging Search Engine Optimization Writing SEO 85

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

So I know I’m getting myself into a bit of trouble by writing this. They will often run all of the daily reports into them covering off for finance, sales, marketing, biz dev & HR. Similarly I talk to CEOs who can’t do a sales pipeline review with me. I think usually a COO title at a startup is an ego thing.

Startup 325

Startup Technical Review Sales Report 325

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. Of course it is super helpful if a VC can drop you in to important people for business development, recruiting, PR, sales and eventually M&A. Fred Wilson wrote perfectly about sticking with struggling investments.

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. Just be careful that it doesn’t come at the expense of investments in growth.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

I never built a Google-sized business but I did build an organization from scratch that grew to 120 employees in 5 countries before we sold it. You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2020

In reality, the opportunities are greater for starting with a micro-business , ideally from your special expertise or passion, with fewer than five employees, and just enough sales to comfortably support you and your team. By spending only within your means, and re-investing the money you make, you will more likely enjoy success.

Customer 125

Customer Custom Tool Writing 125

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

Rincon is part of the new breed of Seed Stage VCs and with the leadership of Jim Andelman has charted out the most authentic early-stage investment strategy in Southern California. Nowhere is social proof more prevalent than in angel investing. Any SoCal entrepreneur raising early-stage money should put Rincon on their short list.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2014

We worked together for four years, and I ended up heading up media buying at that company, and he headed up sales. We started looking at the landscape, and as I was getting my MBA at the time, ended up writing the business plan for ConsumerTrack. how does your company stay on top of all of that?

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

In the original version of his post, Andy writes. Most top tier VCs return about 3x invested capital and outlier funds (the best of a vintage) might return 6-8x. But the larger funds usually have lower returns because they are often investing bigger dollars at later stages with less risk and therefore lower returns.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

Basically, once a sale is made, that client gets links to profiles on HeyTutor, and based on their preferences it might provide tutors within in 50-mile radius, a 20-mile radius, and the tutors who match up with those preferences will be notified through SMS, email, and our apps. The second part, is our matching technology.

Startup 113

Startup Venture Capital Beverly Hills Acquisition 113

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

Last year I lost a deal in a company that I wanted to invest in and that I thought I should have won. I’m not looking to invest there – I’m looking to understand the trends, the people, the innovation, the regions and how China can become an integral part of any of my portfolio companies as they scale. Be gracious.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

Last year I lost a deal in a company that I wanted to invest in and that I thought I should have won. I’m not looking to invest there – I’m looking to understand the trends, the people, the innovation, the regions and how China can become an integral part of any of my portfolio companies as they scale. Be gracious.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

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. ” Who cut you in on their bonus because even though you’re “just an sales engineer” they know you really deserved more credit for this deal. Writing a book will be fun. After 6 months – you know.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 23, 2013

Paid search engine ranking (PPC) is buying advertising for your business from Google or another search engine company. SEO is not placing ads, but tuning your website so that it is more highly ranked by Google, and featured in the first page of results, not in an ad beside the results. Campaign setup and ad copy writing.

Paid Search 90

Paid Search PPC Organization SEO 90

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

You have a “strategic investor&# who wants to invest in your B round as long as a financial investor will lead. Google has announced that they are planning to compete with you. - I was looking for a person to head up my UK sales team. But as a sales person you have to be able to build rapport. You raised $1.5

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Startup Training Sales 264

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. million pre-money valuation is now raising $1 million at a $12 million valuation the next investor has nowhere to go but up (or sit out the investment). Exactly the opposite of what a rational investment strategy would advise. So people sell or at least don’t invest.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2010

Search engine marketing is simply buying advertising for your business from Google or another search engine company. SEO is not placing ads, but tuning your website so that it is more highly ranked by Google, and featured in the first page of results, not in an ad beside the results. Campaign setup and ad copy writing.

SEM 90

SEM Marketing Startup Search Engine Optimization 90

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” At Upfront we invested in such a company. ” The punch line from this post was “angel yourself.” She joined Yahoo!

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

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. Each of your angels or seed investors may have 20-30 investments. He is very pleasant when he calls and writes. What Rob wrote in his post is right.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

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. Which is why the mega valuations you read about are almost always by companies with enormous valuations and/or cash on hand: Google, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. Hang on, Mark.

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

socalTECH

DECEMBER 15, 2010

For a big company, that might be through their own sales force, and for a smaller company it might be a small team which is operating the site themselves. That means that publishers can integrate our technology with other components in the enterprise stack, for example, their financial system or sales force management system, or CRM system.

OpenX 242

OpenX Advertising Yahoo Pasadena 242

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. Those are the two main criteria.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Tech.Co

JULY 25, 2017

Luckily, there’s an abundance of lead generation tools that busy professionals can use to start building a subscriber base without investing too much time. Normally, one would use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to obtain raw data on how a site performs. Here are some of the best ones I’ve used so far: Beaver Builder.

Tool 39

Tool Customer Custom Sites 39

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. BCG, Bain, LEK – they’re all great), a few years at a start-up or a few years somewhere like Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple. I tell people regularly that I only invest in companies where the DNA is software. I had to laugh a bit reading it.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

When to get a lawyer - If you plan to be a venture or angel backed technology company (what I mostly write about) the best time to start meeting and getting to know lawyers is long before you ever start your company. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. Consider it a sales & marketing expense for them.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

I was working hand-in-hand with my close friend and associate Stuart Lander who was running our UK office and with one of our local sales reps. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. Winning the contract meant that we would hit our quarterly revenue figure and be in good position for our annual sales target.

Startup 151

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review 151

Jason Nazar

MARCH 22, 2011

When he had the idea for his company, he didn’t write a long business plan or try to raise money to hire an agency to build a website for him. We tend to be better at things like team building, negotiations, sales, and fundraising – which are arguably the most important skills entrepreneurs should posses.

Company 111

Company Companies Startup Twiistup 111

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

No one, including the engineers who work on Google’s constantly evolving search algorithms, fully understands how to reliably and consistently boost search results via artificial means. Thus, avoid link farms, mindless keyword content and similar techniques designed to make your site more Google friendly.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

Bobby’s strong sales acumen, genuine charisma and leadership abilities make him an invaluable asset to the founding team. Jenna can write a recommendation on Andy’s profile or send an email to friends recommending Andy, one of his workout plans or the fitness event she’s registered for. Braintree Payment integration is another.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

The questions that a VC mulls before writing a check are precisely the questions you should be asking yourself. In our industry we call that a TAM (total addressable market) and I’m sure you can even Google methods for calculating a TAM. What would it take in investments to acquire and retain traffic to support these businesses?

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

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. I know that I have not yet earned these kudos based on investment returns (although my partners have. By definition, you read blogs.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

Now, he ‘outsources’ his investments through John Frankel of Frankel Asset Management. I appreciate the write-up and your continued support of this blog. Why AltaVista Failed To Become as Successful as Google. How Quigo Went Head-to-Head With Google. Quigo was competing heavily and heatedly with Google.

Google 302

Google Startup Advertising Acquisition 302

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A The key is channeling what you learn when you drive onto paper for retention purposes so you have to write it down soon afterward. When I write a blog post I often see the words before I write them. These are all creative processes.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. This is true whether your at a sales meeting or at a VC firm. In our current portfolio 3 or his 4 investments are in the Fin Svcs space.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

We were talking about a company, Factual (disclosure my firm is an investor), which was founded by one of LA’s most talented Internet entrepreneurs, Gil Elbaz , who as co-founder of Applied Semantics (purchased by pre-IPO Google for $102 million and now Google AdSense) is responsible for a large portion of the Internet’s monetization.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313