Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. uBeam’s tech does work and I have safely seen it demo’d in the real life many times. Entrepreneurs. ” **. . ” **.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

And a few teams of super talented, educated and bright entrepreneurs make a few mill. Almost certainly the startup would have raised some capital. Get yourself in a big demo day competition. Acquihires and Venture Capital. But that’s not how you make money in the venture capital business. in their 20′s.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

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. And I would rather, even before the executive summary, have something to play with (a demo)…” It falls in the category of show don’t tell.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

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." A Beginner's Guide to Investors How to Speak the Language of Venture Capital How much is it costing you to get users?

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. For simplicity I’ll assume you’ve raised some money from angels or seed investors and you’re either raising an A round or a B round of venture capital. Remember, I was an entrepreneur for 10 years before a VC). these are simply guidelines.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

I’m not going to cover in this post the obvious post-show marketing tasks such as following up on all those business cards you grabbed, communicating with all those people who registered at your site and leveraging your new found fame to score venture capital. Just don’t believe what they write about you. Enjoy the moment.

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that funding is something you do in “funding season,&# some mythical 2-month period when you’re ready with a great Powerpoint deck and you hit up all of the VC’s at the same time so that you can quickly raise money and get back to the job of building a business.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Most advisors will tell you to write the business plan first (20-30 pages), then distill the key points into a set of Microsoft PowerPoint slides for standup presentations to potential investors. What is the level of capital funding sought during this stage? Offer to do a demo later, but don’t try to squeeze it in the presentation.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

We write and create our own content for the game. Bill founded Idealab to create and build successful businesses that capitalize on innovations in areas with significant growth opportunities, including the Internet. 8:00 – 8:35pm – 5 five-minute demos, followed by brief Q&A for each company. What: Spotlight Series Event.

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

I taught a somewhat crazy course about writing and deploying a scalable website in Ruby on Rails and deploying it in EC2. That led us to venture capital as opposed to trying to bootstrap ourselves. When you began your teaching career, did you plan on eventually being an entrepreneur?

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

So I thought I’d write a piece on how to not suck when you give a presentation. If you demo your product (which is always great) then tell us part of the story while you’re demo’ing. Also, asking is not appropriate at a marquee conferences like TechCrunch50, DEMO, Twiistup and the like.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital. But some companies have entrepreneurs that seem talented on paper, are in a space that seems interesting to investors and are able to raise venture capital early in the company’s existence. Our first big round of venture capital (our A round) was a whopping $16.5

Startup 299

Startup Venture Capital Technical Review Training 299

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

Oh, and Demo charges the startups $18,000. Journalists don’t know enough about your company before the show, don’t have time for proper research, and you will be competing for their time afterward with 49+ other companies that want them to write about you. - Robert’s article is worth reading. It started socially.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How To Pitch A Product - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , August 4, 2010 I've said a bunch of times on this blog that the perfect pitch is a very short intro to provide context followed immediately by a demo. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

But the status symbol of this milestone is driving investors, entrepreneurs, the press and everybody into thinking you magically can achieve this status in a matter of a few years with a great team and an astounding idea. My concern is that culture of unicorns has created a generation of entrepreneurs & investors looking for short cuts.

Technical Advisors 150

Technical Advisors Startup Writing Blogging 150