Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well. These are very different.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software Capital Startup 334

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 5, 2023

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Product Marketing Resource 296

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. Of course there’s no exact number of VCs you should meet?—?these

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

I was on This Week in Venture Capital today with Jason Calacanis talking about the big VC deals at the moment and talking about the VC industry. And SEO juice of sites with no value makes searching for real product feedback suck. Also in the video: - Is it a good idea for VC’s to pay stratospheric prices? -

Venture Capital 232

Venture Capital Capital SEO Yahoo 232

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. Products that ship late and place entire companies under serious stress.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I believe these VC funds have suffered some amount of reputation fall out. Let me explain: 1.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Invest 265

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

I was on This Week in Venture Capital (TWiVC) again this week with Jason Calacanis. Golden rule of branding for me: 1) name your company or product your URL and 2) don’t paint yourself into a corner. &# Tweet&# = corner. I found this investment strange since normally VC’s hate to bet on gaming companies.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Capital Google Platform 271

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. You’d be surprised how many firms are “dictator VCs” – even those that don’t formally acknowledge it internally.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Startup Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Great exit. - If you watch the video I go into greater detail.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

This is the final part of a 3-part series on the major changes in the structure of the software & the venture capital industries. The result was a massive increase in startups & a whole group of new funding sources: both angels & “micro VCs&#. But … Downsizing Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Capital Cloud Computing Marketing 289

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. What price? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. What stage?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2009

This is part of my blog series “ Pitching a VC.&#. I’ve sat through a lot of VC pitches and having been CEO of an enterprise software firm for many years I’ve also sat through many customer meetings with sales teams. The following are some tips for the debate style VC meeting. Tips in a debate led VC Meeting.

Venture Capital 275

Venture Capital Sales Slides Startup 275

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund. VC Financings: 1. So my gut says this will be a youth-oriented product.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Capital Rustic Canyon Mobile 270

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Certainly, bootstrapping is a preferred method of funding growth if it does not hold back the speed of growth or hobble the quality of product or service to the extent that better-funded competitors can overtake the business. Venture, private equity and more: Here we lump a large number of investor classes into one.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

They might not actively “collude&# and say “let’s collectively keep the price down&# but in the resulting discussion pricing information will flow – whether intentional or not. They’re not in search of price fixing or collusion, they’re in search of diligence information about the company.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292

Xconomy

OCTOBER 27, 2016

Prices for agricultural commodities such as corn, soy, and wheat are at their lowest levels in years, but investment in agricultural technology has never been better. They also queried 15 VC firms. The increase in dollars flowing to agtech comes despite commodity prices that are down 65 percent from their 2013 peak, the report says.

Venture Capital 40

Venture Capital Pricing Invest Report 40

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 20, 2011

This is extra frustrating in an era in which all you read about is how frothy the VC / funding market is these days. Obviously the diagnosis can have many route causes: Sometimes it’s a question of a market that is less sexy than the current VC fad. He was price signaling without knowing it. It was the silent killer.

Pricing 284

Pricing Venture Capital Competition Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. I’m not a doomsday guy, but just believe that we won’t see a V shaped recovery, which could make VC funding more difficult for tech start-ups (don’t shoot the messenger!).

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Startup Funding Technical Review 269

InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

The steps outlined below represent an ideal approach to raising capital from sophisticated investors. You might be at Step 2 with one VC and Step 3 with another. VCs collude all the time, it is only fair that entrepreneurs compare notes every now and again as well.”. Even the most jaded VC cannot resist authentic flattery.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Capital Research Custom 236

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 26, 2010

And even then Microsoft has substitute products as anyone who has taken Econ 101 will tell you. So if you’re raising money – from angels or VCs – you’re going to have to address the question of whom you’re competing against. With VCs my strong suggestion is that you be open & realistic.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Slides Competition Education 313

socalTECH

JULY 10, 2019

For this morning's interview, we spoke with Los Angeles-based Halla , a venture backed startup, focused on personalized recommendations for the food ordering industry. in seed funding, from E&A Venture Capital and SOSV. We spoke with CEO and co-founder Spencer Price to learn more about the company. What is Halla?

Pricing 113

Pricing Startup North Hollywood Platform 113

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

Lots of discussion these days about the changes in the VC industry. The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures).

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 12, 2023

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited angel investors. The amounts from angels start as low as $25K, while minimum venture capital amounts usually start in the $2M range. How big is your startup opportunity?

Startup 98

Startup Venture Capital Funding Invest 98

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2014

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited Angel investors. The amounts from Angels start as low as $25K, while minimum venture capital amounts usually start in the $2M range. How big is your startup opportunity?

Venture Capital 106

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Angel Startup 106

TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

Builders VC led the round, which included participation from Celtic, Newfund and Wish co-founder Danny Zhang. Stella Wu, who formerly worked as a growth product manager at Wish, got firsthand experience of the pain points related to the process when she bought her own house in 2017. Image Credits: Eano CEO and founder Stella Wu / Eano.

Technical Review 185

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly? Short answer – yes.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Startup Invest Funding 263

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Soraa , the UC Santa Barbara spinout funded by Khosla Ventures, NEA, and NGEN Partners, has unveiled its first product, a new LED lighting lamp. Pricing on the LED lamps has not been released. Soraa is manufacturing its products in Fremont. The firm's other founders are also all professors at UCSB. READ MORE>>.

LAMP 153

LAMP Product Santa Barbara Venture Capital 153

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. There are now signs the VC market has gathered pace meaning it’s a great time to be fund raising.

Venture Capital 255

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Social Network 255

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. I just completed an exercise where I went out to hire a new associate for my VC firm, GRP Partners. I had to laugh a bit reading it. What about strategy?

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. Product Manager Entrepreneur Mark Geller SEO for Startups Startup Version 1.0 ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Guide CTO Coach Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. In particular I tried to do most of the “entrepreneur advice on VC” up front so that if you don’t want to watch our views on the deals you don’t have to. They sponsor TWiVC.

Venture Capital 214

Venture Capital Startup Design S3 214

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 13, 2020

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited angel investors. The amounts from angels start as low as $25K, while minimum venture capital amounts usually start in the $2M range. How big is your startup opportunity?

Venture Capital 125

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Startup Invest 125

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. I just want to figure out what a fair valuation is.&# I figured all the VC’s talked so we should. But this example above is all entrepreneur math, not the VC’s.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

My experiments in lean pricing - Venture Hacks , February 16, 2010 Ash Maurya, a lean entrepreneur who runs a bootstrapped startup called CloudFire, discusses pricing issues for first versions (Minimum Viable Product – MVP). This post looks at the implementation details of HTML 5 video. How Unique Is A Unique Visitor? -

Pricing 150

Pricing Acquisition Custom Customer 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

The median VC exit price for deals is $70 million (FLAG Capital via Bryce.VC). There is a mythology amongst some LPs (funds that invest in VCs) and some VCs that “entry price doesn’t matter – only investing in the absolute best entrepreneurs.” So entry price matters a lot.

Startup 323

Startup Technology Venture Capital Santa Barbara 323