Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2010

They had received a term sheet from a VC and were wondering whether to work with this firm. This experience made me want to dig into my archives, re-write & publish this piece. I often tell people that raising venture capital is more difficult than getting married. Not so in venture capital.

Venture Capital 298

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Help 298

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

In writing anything positive about any of the companies I’m not suggesting that it means that I prefer them to any of their competitors. Also, some of the deals I write about I have actually seen as part of their fund raising process. Investors: Union Square (lead), Spark Capital (lead). Really!). $5.0mm in Series C.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

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. In case VC’s haven’t figured this out yet, shit rolls downhill. No prizes for guessing which VCs I didn’t work with (and still won’t).

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

VC's love to talk about their successes. Yet most VC's bury their failures under six feet of denial. In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. The difference is that VoiceXML does not leverage customers' knowledge of web development.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

Back then there was no “cloud” so we had to plow money into hardware, software licenses and web hosting. But at the end of the year you write your own ticket if you’re talented because now you have experience and it cost you less than your law school loans! Why did I join as a partner in a VC fund on that salary?

Startup 409

Startup Invest Venture Capital Writing 409

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?

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. When should a VC invest? Start writing down predictions about people, companies, and markets. Between TechCrunch today and my former roles in venture capital, I’ve had the opportunity to practice timing a lot.

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 26, 2021

“The Ruin stirs, and the Five Realms rumble,” a now-archived web announcement read on Thursday morning. 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. But Muir isn’t secretive that she got her start writing fan fiction.

Writing 196

Writing Outsource Development Technical Review Examples 196

Jason Nazar

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Instead of making as many new investments, VCs will use their cash for inside rounds to fund their top preforming portfolio companies that have the greatest likelihood of success. Erick Schonfeld writes about the current state of affairs in his TechCrunch post: “ The End of Venture Capital as We Know It &#.

Venture Capital 44

Venture Capital Rustic Canyon Capital Clearstone 44

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

It’s apropos because there is so much noise these days with email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, web shows, etc. If I check Twitter it’s usually because I’m waiting for a meeting to start and I never write posts during the day. I don’t think any serious VC or angel thought it was “collusion.&#

Email 287

Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She hasn’t raised any venture capital. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. This was the first in her string of web properties. She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. That may soon change.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." What The Heck Does “Traction” Really Mean To A VC? Great analysis from John Greathouse: Do You Speak VC?

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. This time frame – 2005/2006 – web 2.0 This time frame – 2005/2006 – web 2.0 Brad’s start in Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

“Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

One of the great joys of doing the web series This Week in VC every week is that I get to spend time with great people debating the issues of our day including how our industry is evolving as well as insights into how companies got started, got their initial traction and dealt with adversities. Oh, yeah.

Startup 286

Startup Venture Capital Web Ideas 286

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC. Quick caveats: having fewer investors (3-5) is better than many investors (10-15) and PLEASE make sure you hire a great lawyer who has experience in doing start-ups to avoid pitfalls that will make VC harder down the line. They might be as hard as raising VC.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. The World Wide Web was now being rolled out everywhere and every project was considering its Intranet strategy. I talked with a few VCs and batted around the idea of becoming a VC.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

This hot list is based on various social signals of what people are writing about, reading, bookmarking, searching, etc. Last month we Launched Los Angeles Tech and in the announcement we provide the Hot List for the first half of January 2009. You can go to the Hot List post to see what was hot then.

Layoffs 159

Layoffs Woodland Hills Southern California Orange County 159

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

“If big companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are prevented from acquiring startups, that actually reduces competition,” Sirinivasan writes. The reason is that if there is less M&A due to legal uncertainty, there is a reduced incentive for angels & VCs to fund those startups in the first place.

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

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. Frankly, it’s the life of ANY executives with whom you want to sell product, do a business development deal with, execute M&A, a journalist you want to write about your company?—?anybody.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2008

In their case, people write their scripts on a web site, and when they're done, they can submit them to contests with a single click. If you're doing freelance writing, have a story you're trying to sell, there's a whole process of finding out where you're doing well, not doing well, and what responses you have received.

Writing 209

Writing Hollywood Startup Sites 209

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

They have marked-up paper gains propped up by an over excited venture capital market that has validated their investments. We haven’t hit that wall yet for three reasons: 1) not enough elapsed time, 2) the VC market is frenzied now, too and 3) we haven’t seen a market downturn since the volume picked up.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 11, 2011

We talked about a lot of great stuff in the video including how to do sales calls and a how a new “culture of writing&# is emerging as a critical skill set in business today. We also talked about why Jon decided to leave Google to become an EIR at a VC firm (Polaris) – minute 33.

Buzzfeed 354

Buzzfeed Content Tips Blogging 354

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

I recommend that you start by writing down the attributes you would want people to think about when they think about your brand. Think about venture capital. Those that were around 30+ years ago never had to think about branding – there were hardly any other VCs. Not versus every other VC but versus many.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles Woodland Hills 304

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

I interviewed Eric for an hour for - This Week in Venture Capital. 8:17 How did you decide to go with either shrinkwrap or web only product? 36:30 Eric: Social media is great for people with social capital. 41:00 Transitioning from software to writing. ” This week was no exception. 00:45 Intro to Eric.

Social Media 301

Social Media Startup Metrics Media 301

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

Where Stealth is Good – There’s a lot of discussions on the web about whether startups should be stealthy before they launch or not. Also be careful about VCs. But once a VC has heard your idea he can’t “un-think&# it. Nobody likes writing re-hashed stories. Be careful about this advice.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

socalTECH

APRIL 14, 2011

He was also the founder of Wallstrip, which he sold to CBS back in 2007, is an investor in a significant number of web and social media companies. Howard Lindzon: In 2007, Fred Wilson had offered me some share in Twitter, when they were putting together their first round of venture capital investments. It's fun, I guess.

Ideas 248

Ideas Web Startup Content 248

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

As a fourteen-year veteran of the venture industry I have often heard the phrase, “value added investors”, which is usually touted by certain VC’s as their biggest differentiating quality. Now that we no longer commute to Windward Circle we cannot help but feel that Amplify has contributed to our growth as well.

Web Design 103

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 103

Xconomy

AUGUST 10, 2016

It’s not that often in a VC career you get to work with teams you’re sure will be featured in documentaries about how major industries changed,” wrote Matt Ocko of Data Collective Venture Capital , which joined DFJ in Nervana’s initial venture funding. “We

Artificial Inteligence 40

Artificial Inteligence San Diego Framework Venture Capital 40

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Lead investors and follow investors can both win equally but in each case you know why you personally are writing the check. And before that Bryce Roberts who working alongside Tim O’Reilly (famed publisher and originator of Web 2.0 Tags: Startup Advice Tech Market Analysis VC Industry. Who ultimately invested in FourSquare?

Invest 288

Invest Angel Web 2.0 SEO 288

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. Many people start companies arse backwards.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 28, 2013

Alex is a proven web entrepreneur, having led and sold multiple successful startups. Prior to starting KnowledgeBase, Alex founded HostPro, an industry-leading web hosting and application services provider. Additionally, he has extensive application development, web hosting, and data center build-out and management experience.

SaaS 92

SaaS Cloud Computing CIO Web 92

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

As automotive web sites go, there are lots of review and information sites giving you information about new and used cars, magazines and information sites for auto enthusiasts, and discussion sites and groups for all kinds of cars. The other thing that struck me, is because it is only men, they tend to write with lots of testosterone.

Truecar 204

Truecar Writing Edmunds Sites 204

socalTECH

DECEMBER 9, 2010

Gil Elbaz: The primary developer demographic for our products is people building web and mobile applications. That data can also be via web crawls, where we are applying natural language, machine learning, and other techniques to extract or validate facts from web pages.

Artificial Inteligence 203

Artificial Inteligence Century City Web Santa Monica 203

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

Redpoint Ventures is one of the venture capital firms which has straddled both Northern California and Southern California, with offices in both locations. We can also write checks as large as $35M out of the Omega Fund. What areas you personally are looking at right now? Fouad ElNaggar: It's pretty broad.

Redpoint 154

Redpoint Southern California Cornerstone OnDemand Invest 154