Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2012

Some entrepreneurs start polling venture capitalists for that multi-million dollar investment before they even have a business plan. Don’t waste your resources on the wrong ones. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it.

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Resource Startup Organization Incubator 94

socalTECH

AUGUST 30, 2016

The Tech Coast Angels , Southern California's biggest angel investment group, says its performance record and returns on its investments are higher than the average angel, in nearly all categories, based on a new academic study. Rob Wiltbank and Professor Wade Brooks for Willamette University and the Angel Resource Institute (ARI).

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Tech Coast Angels Angel Truecar Southern California 133

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2010

In today’s post I want to talk about the concept of a VC flightpath. This is my description of a VC process, not one I’ve heard from other VCs so don’t expect it to be accepted nomenclature. Even when you’re getting the VC love this reality I imagined couldn’t be further from the truth.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

My goal in the interview overall was to capture more of the personal side of Fred since so much of his investment thesis and portfolio work already comes out in his blog. We talk a lot about his schooling, his early jobs as a developer and then as a VC and we talk about his decision to spend winters in Los Angeles.

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Venture Capital Startup Writing Blogging 150

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

“The climate-oriented investment in Biden’s new plan would be roughly ten times what came through ARRA,” wrote Shayle Kann, a partner with the investment firm, Energy Impact Partners. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

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Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

To grow faster businesses need resources in today to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year. Do you imagine eventually raising VC and trying to build a faster growing company?” They raised $5 million in venture capital to fund growth. The VC-backed businesses sometimes “blow up.”

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. I’d link to it but it’s behind a paywall.

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Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

We spent a lot of time talking about what type of company we wanted to create, how many employees we’d eventually have, whether we would take funding, our lifestyle, and a dozen other things that had nothing to do with writing software. We both made personal investments in the company. I’m not claiming that bootstrapping has been easy.

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Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

It’s why the first company I ever invested in as a VC – Invoca – just announced a $20 million funding by Accel Partners. Of course that website isn’t completely up to date but it’s a great resource for seeing the overall picture. Much more data in the full post. PHONE CALLS. Enter phone calls.

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Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

This is important because when you have too many VCs on a board you only bring one kind of thinking to the board. Independents are critical to avoiding “VC group think.” They also get huge value from somebody who has run a large business and dealt with scaling challenges more than any VC on the board ever has.

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Startup Writing Venture Capital Oracle 187

socalTECH

MARCH 16, 2017

Earlier this week, Derek Norton , a long time advisor to the media, Internet, and technology industry in Los Angeles, announced a brand new venture capital fund called Watertower Ventures (www.watertowerventures.com). I hate to put us into the pre-seed and seed area, so I am saying literally, first institutional capital.

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Invest Funding Capital Startup 145

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

This continues my series of posts: Top 40 Startup Posts for August 2010 Top 30 Startup Posts for July 2010 Top 30 Startup Posts in June 2010 Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March Some great free resources listed this month that I thought were interesting. Why You Should Write.

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Startup Product Technology Venture Capital 191

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2009

I wanted to also post the series here to have it as a resource on my blog for future entrepreneurs who stop by. One of the questions I’m most often asked as a VC is what I’m looking for in an investment. This post covers the first out of 10 that I’ll write about. Excite, Ask Jeeves and Lycos?

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Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Google 338

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. Absofuckinglutely.

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Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

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. VC’s money comes from mostly institutional investors called LPs (limited partners). It starts as a debt instrument (e.g.

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Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2015

I write about sales often both because it’s the lifeblood of any organization and because in my experience it is the area in which more startups are least experienced or inclined. I also write and talk about it frequently because raising capital is a part of sales and this is important for entrepreneurs to understand.

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Sales Startup Venture Capital Funding 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2018

Some entrepreneurs start polling venture capitalists for that multi-million dollar investment before they even have a business plan. Don’t waste your resources on the wrong ones. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it.

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Funding Startup Organization Incubator 94

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

It’s why my investment philosophy is called, “ the entrepreneur thesis.&#. I need to take some VC meetings. But it did take Brad as a public spokesman, consummate networker and successful VC to help create legitimacy to let David’s ideas flourish. I don’t write about LA but I write from LA.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. I invest heavily in relationships with journalists both because I like them and respect their profession and I know that there is a benefit to me in the long run if I’m not transactional in my relationships.

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Press Startup Writing Training 319

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Most venture capitalists who have been in this business for a long time foresaw this correction and have been talking about it privately for the better part of the last year or two. What is the True Sentiment of VCs? Brad was openly writing about this and it felt like he was giving the VC playbook away for free!

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Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

You left the meeting dreaming about money and finally having resources to do all of the things you wanted to do. At night I had a group dinner where I met 6 new entrepreneurs and hung out with some old friends from law firms, banks and other VC funds. I think you’d really enjoy meeting her wether you decide to invest or not.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

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. ” I’m not so sure.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

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!” To grow faster businesses need resources in today’s financial period to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year.

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Some entrepreneurs start polling venture capitalists for that multi-million dollar investment before they even have a business plan. Don’t waste your resources on the wrong ones. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it.

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Organization Startup Incubator Ideas 93

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2013

Some entrepreneurs start polling venture capitalists for that multi-million dollar investment before they even have a business plan. Don’t waste your resources on the wrong ones. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Funding Incubator Startup 102

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. You hire people who look good on paper. You REALLY know.

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CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

InfoChachkie

JUNE 27, 2011

My response was brief and straightforward, which is common of popular Quora answers (as discussed in How To Write An Effective Quora Answer ). Although my answer was off-the-cuff, the question caused me to consider the issue of raising entrepreneurial children in greater depth, which led me to write this series. No Paychecks.

Entrepreneur 270

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Resource 270

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. What is the investment focus for this fund?

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Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2012

Kind of like a law firm (or VC firm) with four partners but shortened to just two, people dropped off his second two words. I’ve wanted to write a blog post called “Mobile Second” for a long time to make this point more forcefully. Try writing long reviews of a restaurant. BUT (and this is a big but …).

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Web Mobile Startup Software Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 2, 2016

I am not writing about this out of the blue – this seems to be the topic of the day in my social stream based on blogs written, retweets rendered and attaboys handed out. VCs also get large tax breaks. We invest large sums of our after-tax money into our funds and this gets a long-term capital gain tax rate when we make a profit.

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Startup Course Writing Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

As I have pointed out in previous posts , 91% of VCs surveyed believe prices are declining (30% believe substantially) and 77% believe that funding will take longer than it has in the past. You have a version of the Tragedy of the Commons in which no individual actor owns responsibility for making the shared resource better.

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Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2010

I guess it may be impractical for Twitter to acquire Seesmic given it has raised considerable amounts of venture capital (reportedly $12 million) but the broader point for me is that I always believed Twitter should control the client versions of its product. Two things : 1) when I invested in Ad.ly No, I don’t think so.

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Acquisition Develop Development Conference 287

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2011

Today I’m announcing that GRP Partners is doubling down on the Twitter ecosystem by investing in DataSift , a company who provides a real-time data platform and tools to third-party developers and corporations. Some will cite my investment two years ago in social-media advertising company Ad.ly So with DataSift I’m doubling down.

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Platform News Startup Invest 307

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2010

A little known, but valuable resource, every startup should investigate is a formal or informal connection to your local university. These resources are definitely are not limited to students, since every university wants and needs the real world exposure and experience of entrepreneurs who already have credibility in the marketplace.

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Help Startup Mentor Incubator 94

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

On Losing in VC. Last year I lost a deal in a company that I wanted to invest in and that I thought I should have won. I know I won’t win every deal I want to in VC. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. The one that you thought you had. The one you were counting on.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2011

Some entrepreneurs start polling venture capitalists for that multi-million dollar investment before they even have a business plan. Don’t waste your resources on the wrong ones. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it.

Startup 92

Startup Organization Incubator Ideas 92

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

On Losing in VC. Last year I lost a deal in a company that I wanted to invest in and that I thought I should have won. I know I won’t win every deal I want to in VC. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. The one that you thought you had. The one you were counting on.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328