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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened? It was 1991.

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Some Reflections on VC Investment Decisions

Both Sides of the Table

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 started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). They worry too much about missing out on a deal.

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This Week in VC with Om Malik & Paul Jozefak

Both Sides of the Table

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).

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This Week in VC with Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners

Both Sides of the Table

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Greycroft is an early-stage VC. Closing a VC fund in 2009/10 is a major achievement in and of itself. Founded in 2007. Note that I’m not defining who numbers 1,2 are.

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Decoding and learning from a business failure

Berkonomics

In fact, many angel investors or venture capitalists look for and respect the lessons learned by entrepreneurs that have survived a failed business. Was this a failed idea from the start?”. The key question is: Why did an entrepreneur fail? And then: What lessons were learned from that failure? You will have “seen the movie before”.

Startup 156
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Know When To Declare Defeat And Toss Out A Bad Idea – Do Not Be Afraid To Say, “That Baby Be Ugly!”

InfoChachkie

Startups consistently identify more ideas and opportunities than they have the time or resources to pursue, such as potential partnerships, new products, entering emerging markets, etc. Idea Cronyism. This is analogous to a startup CEO selecting which ideas will be considered by a larger group for implementation.

Ideas 187
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What Makes an Entrepreneur? Cojones (7/11)

Both Sides of the Table

Having street smarts with no inspirational ability to build teams can yield a great small business but will be difficult to scale into a large VC-backed business. So we as VCs search for entrepreneurs/founders who have the whole package or as much of it as possible. In the book they profile how VC worked in the early days (60s / 70s).