Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Yesterday I wrote Part 1 of the series on the changes to the software industry over the past decade that has led to changes in the venture capital industry itself. With new micro VC entrants into to early-stage investing plus increased competition from angels, incubators and the like – traditional VCs have taken notice.

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Venture Capital Capital Software Startup 296

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. It forces innovation.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We had a special edition of This Week in Venture Capital this week shooting out of the Next New Networks offices in New York. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital. We both felt that the critical reasoning skills and writing skills were critical to our career development. The Spark Capital website (it’s one of my favorites).

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. You can short-hand this as “engagement.” Why 8–10 and not just 3–4?

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Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

As an advisor to many entrepreneurs, I still hear frequently the irrational exuberance that crowdfunding is the quick alternative for startups that are passed over by overly demanding angels or venture capital investors. In reality, crowdfunding has become a major startup funding vehicle, expected to reach $3.62

Startup 100

Startup Equity Entrepreneur Demand 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

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. I want to fail because I backed an extraordinary entrepreneur with a super-ambitious project and we were just wrong about market timing, customer adoption, competition, regulation or similar.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Startup Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. So by offering convertible debt you can avoid a price discussion in the same way that angel investors sometimes do in order to win competitive early-stage deals.

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Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.” I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you.

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 26, 2020

As an advisor to many entrepreneurs, I still hear frequently the irrational exuberance that crowdfunding is the quick alternative for startups that are passed over by overly demanding angels or venture capital investors. He points out that the word crowd precedes funding in crowdfunding.

Startup 151

Startup Equity Funding Demand 151

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2014

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. They have to sell themselves, more than their product, to close on every alternative source of funding. Thus “creative” really means maximizing non-bank financing.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Capital Startup Funding 101

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. 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. When should a VC invest?

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Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. Prorata investments rights given investors the right to invest in your future fund-raising rounds and maintain their ownership % in your company as your company grows and raises more capital.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

It was a pleasure to write them myself. And when I say this I don’t mean they funded billion dollar companies – they literally created them. I brought up the fact that I find many larger companies abusing the patent system to slow down smaller competitors which is actually anti competitive. Overture (Goto.com).

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Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

. “If big companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are prevented from acquiring startups, that actually reduces competition,” Sirinivasan writes. If big companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are prevented from acquiring startups, that actually reduces competition. — Balaji S. — Balaji S.

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Why you should set up a board at the seed round of funding I know these days with SAFE documents and rolling convertible notes many founders prefer not to set up a board early on. What happens at the A-round of venture capital? This is the norm and unless you have a hugely competitive round it’s not worth fighting.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

In fact, I think the evidence is clear that many entrepreneurs started their journey while still in college, and capitalized on all the resources there, before moving on: Extend your technology focus with business basics. Write a business plan and pitch deck for learning. Learning by doing is the only way to go.

Entrepreneur 157

Entrepreneur Mentor Class Resource 157

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. I have no money?

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Finally I realized that venture capital and angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary. Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. Contrary to popular belief, most investors are not looking for entrepreneurs who are desperate for funding.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 111

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. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. Don’t.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

Most relevant to startups is the push to fund initiatives and technologies that can help prevent or protect against extreme wildfires; rising sea levels and hurricanes; new agriculture resource management; and “climate-smart” technologies. ” Climate resiliency .

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Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2: As expected at least one person accused me of writing this post because I want to see lower valuations. I have conversations with entrepreneurs and other VCs on a daily basis about fund raising, the prices of deals, how much companies should raise, etc. I acknowledged this in the article. I’m just making the commentary.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” ” And even the venerable Fred Wilson weighed in with how people “ leading vs. following ” in funding rounds play different roles and have different skills. Bowery Capital).

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Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

This is why I am such a big fan of General Assembly both because they’re teaching more tangible skills but also because they’re working directly with employers to fund classes as well as to onboard the more successful GA students directly. We also spoke about technology systems in the perspective of global competition.

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Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. GRP Partners last fund is the single best performing VC fund in the US (prequin data) for its vintage year). Absofuckinglutely.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

No VC Fit - Match your venture with appropriate funding source. Jeff Carmody, Co-Founder of Agility Capital and a successful institutional investor, provided me with the outline shown below. Competition. Capitalization. Who do I write the check to and where do I send it? Real World Executive Summary Template.

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Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2020

Finally I realized that venture capital and angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary. Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. Contrary to popular belief, most investors are not looking for entrepreneurs who are desperate for funding.

Entrepreneur 126

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 126

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 15, 2012

You control substantial amounts of capital, have tremendous autonomy, a flexible work schedule and you get to play Santa by bestowing financial gifts upon worthy entrepreneurs. I define a "VC" as, "a professional investor who deploys third-party funds into relatively early-stage companies." Major League Players Don't Count The Odds.

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest RSS 242

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2010

Her experience includes helping startups for many years, and board positions on the Rocky Mountain and New Mexico Venture Capital Associations, New Mexico Angels, as well as several startups. Marty: What events led you to your commitment to venture capital investing? Stephanie: I love building companies. Oh, I couldn’t do that!”

Venture Capital 65

Venture Capital Capital Entrepreneur Competition 65

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. On December 3rd Brad Feld wrote a one paragraph blog post titled “ Raising Venture Capital &# in which he linked to my blog. That changed very quickly.

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Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

It’s what signals to existing investors how quickly their teams need to be fund raising and the level of risk the company is facing and also it signals to potentially new investors both how quickly you need to raise (ie you have less leverage if you’re in a rush) as well as how much cash you’ll need if they fund you.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

We talked with Noah about how the company grew out of a business plan competition at the University of Southern California, his recent funding from the Maverick Angels, as well as how the firm hopes to stand out among a crowded list of comparison shopping sites. Finally, what are you using your recent funding round for?

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USC CPC Sites Startup 207

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Services 72

Services Startup Training Writing 72

From the Venture Trenches

MARCH 27, 2013

The recent firing of Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason is a cautionary tale of the increased scrutiny and heightened expectations that come from accessing increasingly larger amounts of investment capital. Is outside capital really required? Wealth family officers, who manage family trust funds, are often seen as being passive investors.

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Venture Capital Capital Anthem Startup 45

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. It’s a tricky question with no clear answer. There are trade offs.

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Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319