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

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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 previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. Tempus Fugit.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# And the VC job has plenty of admin and minutiae.

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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. The “Triple Play&# of VC Presentations. I funded them 8 weeks later.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC&# – the outline is here. You’ve pitched several angels and VC’s. Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. Unfortunately your advisers are wrong.

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Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

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? Beware of Crocodile Sales. I still do this sometimes, too. Always “test your understanding.&#.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

My primary role was “chief psychologist&# and as I’ve learned over the past few years the same has been true as a VC. I finally got around to writing it having read Fred Wilson’s post about what a CEO does. This is akin in the US to having sales staff in NY, SF & LA with your HQ in one of these locations.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” “Ok, so this guy can write a blog and source deals but can he make any money?”

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. The abundance of late-stage capital is good for us all. My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca. Entrada Ventures? —?that

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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.] So what?

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TechCrunch LA

JULY 2, 2020

When it comes to venture capital, Los Angeles is a city on the rise. In the past year, it’s seen one of the most profitable venture-backed exits of any tech ecosystem (with the $4 billion sale of Honey to PayPal) and investors are minting billion-dollar companies in the region at a torrid pace.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. 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.

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InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Too Techie - Tone down emphasis on the technology underlying your venture; an interested investor will perform tech diligence at the appropriate time. No VC Fit - Match your venture with appropriate funding source. Distribution and Sales. Capitalization. Who do I write the check to and where do I send it?

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Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

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.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

When you first start your career as an investor (or when you first start writing angel checks) your main obsession is “getting into great deals.” the sale of the company for $1 billion. Early-stage venture capital is about extreme winners. You’re thinking about one bullet at a time. It was ~30 days from bankruptcy.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 senior 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 6 months. Do you imagine eventually raising VC and trying to build a faster growing company?”

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

He eventually founded and sold consumer health firm ViSalus to a public company and is now back making investments, in technology companies, as a venture capitalist here at Los Angeles-based HashtagOne (www.hashtagone.com). I'm a bit of an anti-VC, as you know. Tell us a bit of the story on how you started HashtagOne?

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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. 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?

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 29, 2014

I once went to a startup event where a VC told the audience that if a VC doesn’t respond to your email to move on to the next VC – that VC is clearly not interested. Will every customer who feels bombarded with sales requests want to take your call? It’s your job to persist.

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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. This starts with understanding how VCs and entrepreneurs often see valuation differently.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. Many businesses that pitch to me have White Elephant issues and I’d like to tell you how to deal with these when you’re raising venture capital. But the VC is thinking about the issue whether you address it or not. He disarmed me.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

But then you can springboard from there to your next gig and you’ll be an experienced startup employee with functional experience at sales, marketing, product or whatever roles you played.” My starting salary when I joined a VC fund as a partner at the age of 39 (and after 2 exits)? I had never been a VC before.

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InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

The problem is that stakeholders, like marketing and sales, don’t know what the latest version of the roadmap is. Greathouse: Having run these groups, I know all about the inherent friction between sales and marketing with regard to lead quality, volume, etc., That causes friction internally. Semick: Thanks John, it was fun!

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. “This essay is dedicated to the great VC’s on my board who I am lucky to work with: Sameer Gandhi from Accel, Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed, and Kirsten Green from Forerunner. . Their data looks at tech VCs. Because they know him or her.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Gross margin (GM) is the amount of profit you make per sale of your product or service taking into account your total costs of selling that product or service. If you have a very low gross margin (10-30%) it can be very hard to build a large, scalable business because you need to make a lot of sales to cover your operating costs.

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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?

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2011

I am a big believer in VC pitches that the bio slide should come up front. Actually, I think the advice in this post applies to any sales meeting also. This is especially important since I believe that 70% of the decision of many VCs are based on the potential of the management team in one way, shape or form.

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Slides GRP Partners Venture Capital Writing 296

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2016

Why would a VC do that? I LOVE writing. But writing takes more time and some days I don’t have that. Today we have all of my past videos with categories so you can more easily explore topics like: fund raising, HR, VC advice, negotiations, sales, marketing, etc. Snapchat is faster and easier.

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Snapchat Blogging Venture Capital Writing 200

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.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 19, 2017

That is, how much should your company be willing to lose in cash every month as you make investments in staff and equipment that funds technology, sales, marketing and management. How Much Capital You Have Raised / Your Runway In general I recommend that in early-stage startups you try to raise at least 15-18 months of runway.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

I got an email recently from my friend & fellow VC, Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston. Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. Specifically, 1.

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From the Venture Trenches

MARCH 27, 2013

Yet despite his ability to raise over $1 billion of private equity and to build an organization that is worth $5 billion as of this writing, Mason was shown the door. Is outside capital really required? Most investors will be interested to learn what you are bringing to market, but their focus will be on your sales traction.

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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. Do you imagine eventually raising VC and trying to build a faster growing company?”

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TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Then fans would be tasked with writing their own stories, submitting them to the Realms of Ruin universe by minting them as NFTs on the Solana blockchain. If the authors are inviting fans to write fan fiction about a universe they created, who owns the derivative works? Another unabashed proponent of fan fiction is N.K.

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Meanwhile, Coffield has spent the past several years building out a network in Los Angeles and eight years in the venture capital industry. “We actively recruit for our portfolio companies which enables us to meet a large swath of highly technical people,” the firm writes in its pitch deck.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

I’m sitting at my computer now at 9.00pm writing this – which is an hour earlier than I normally write (there are about 8 women at my kitchen table having a book club (aka excuse to drink wine & gossip so I’m locked in another room writing. I just had this chat last night with a friend / VC who I respect.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Or as I picked up from Bruce Dunlevie at Benchmark Capital (who I’m told took the quote from elsewhere). I plan to write a whole separate blog post about this quote because it’s always stuck with me. 5 years or so later I still revisit that sales campaign and relive many of the steps. In fact, ramp up your efforts.

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