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500 Startups moves to rolling admissions instead of cohorts

TechCrunch LA

500 Startups is scrapping its cohort model for accelerating companies and moving to a rolling admissions process, the accelerator said during its latest demo day. “Demo is changing the way it runs its accelerator to be rolling recruitment,” said Aaron Blumenthal , a 500 Startups venture partner.

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Retro: My Favorite Blog Post on Raising VC

Both Sides of the Table

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. 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. My blog was wiped out.

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How to Handle a VC Presentation with No Deck

Both Sides of the Table

I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. I’m comfortable with introductions and then getting into the demo.&#. I believe in this so much that, despite my post advising you to be prepared for the *norm* in VC, I wrote a post about a company that came in for a presentation and never even got the slides out or presented a demo.

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Why VCs Should Stop Trying to be Perfect

Both Sides of the Table

If the deal is from out of your geography and/or out of your focus area or a deal is being referred by a well-know investor who normally co-invests with similar syndicates – at least ask yourself, “Why am I so lucky to be getting this call.” I avoid Demo Days like the plague and have publicly said so. End of story.

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The Importance of Proprietary Deal Flow in Early-Stage VC

Both Sides of the Table

I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. There is one source that was always problematic for me – intros from investment bankers. There is one source that was always problematic for me – intros from investment bankers. Big difference.]. International money.

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Why Early-Stage VCs Should Be Careful About Intros from Bankers

Both Sides of the Table

I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. There is one source I never liked and no early-stage VC should – investment bankers. They are venture bankers not investment bankers. They have an investment in each company so I can understand that goal.

Startup 361
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Do Less. More.

Both Sides of the Table

There’s too much PR and too many tech blogs and too many newsletters and aggregators and Twitter summarizers to even try to catch everything that’s going on and equally there’s so much noise that it becomes harder to be heard. I still plan to keep more normal pace of investment which is 1-2 deals per year.