Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

And a few teams of super talented, educated and bright entrepreneurs make a few mill. It has even gone so far that we now have evocative headlines in the tech press such as “ Buy or Die ,” which is what got me thinking about this post. Almost certainly the startup would have raised some capital. Woo the press.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Just as I was getting the swing of things the world shifted beneath my feet and the stock market went into a free fall and venture capital all but shut down for nearly a year. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15 15 million first checks but we also have three growth funds. Over the past 2.5

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

Consistent with the statistics cited in Why Entrepreneurs Hate (Most) MBAs , the large majority of John and Kyle''s classmates accepted positions at investment banks and consulting firms upon graduation. Dear Friends, We have no income and no venture capital funding. Saying, ''Hey, we want to pay you to write a book.’

Newsletter 133

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 133

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

I even prefer to fund entrepreneurs who have experience some level of set-backs in their careers or startups because I think it brings a humility to decision-making that I find healthy. In London when founders failed they were ostracized in the press and culturally I believe it became harder to raise capital.

Startup 261

Startup Press Blogging .Net 261

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

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. There are just one hell of lot more insanely rich angels where writing a couple of million dollar checks in a follow on round is actually achievable.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

I actually like finding entrepreneurs who are more circumspect, less braggadocios and generally more planned about their actions. Where Stealth is Bad – I do meet entrepreneurs who clearly fall on the other side of spectrum and are totally closed. That’s fine if entrepreneurs are your target market. They come and go.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

I have blogged about some of the downside consequences of the changes and the private information I have says the consequences are much worse than is reported in the press since few people publicly talk about. We are doing what we do – writing larger checks and playing an active role at the company. Is this investor on AngelList?

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Now, I’m pretty on the record that being an entrepreneur is about being great at The Do. Frankly, I think venture capital is that way, too. How does the world in Los Angeles intersect differently with venture capital? And I get flooded with legal docs, end-of-quarter financial administration, recruiting, whatever.

Venture Capital 400

Venture Capital Conference Ideas Entrepreneur 400

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As noted in Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Pitch Their Ideas To Venture Capitalists , most sophisticated investors place their bets on people rather than opportunities.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Entrepreneurs could learn about loneliness of success: nobody talks about. He suffered publicly as the press called his wife fat and begged people at concerts to be kinder to his wife. Success can be lonely because it is only a heartbeat away from failure and the press love a rise-and-fall story. But needed to be seen.

Press 150

Press Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. Most top tier VCs return about 3x invested capital and outlier funds (the best of a vintage) might return 6-8x.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

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. Here I make the case that entrepreneurs must stay focused on the prize, not the doubters. Entrepreneurs. ” **. It can be one of the strongest motivators.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. What stage?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

InfoChachkie

JULY 23, 2012

Serial entrepreneur, venture investor and startup accelerator pioneer Brad Feld has notoriously mocked traditional marketing throughout his career. When the entrepreneur is obsessed with the product and the company has organized all of its activities around that, it’s very powerful.”. We have never done a press release.

Marketing 233

Marketing Blogging Startup Venture Capital 233

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. We listened way too much to what the press said. That’s OK.

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

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. So, whether an entrepreneur raises money or not, they have to have a long-term vision. Is outside capital really required?

Venture Capital 45

Venture Capital Capital Anthem Startup 45

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

This was an audience of mostly first-time entrepreneurs. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs. I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. I suppose I should have imagined that this line would get more press than all other comments combined. source: Capital IQ. I believe that. Fair enough.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. What stage?

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

Only naive people believe that but for inexperienced entrepreneurs you can be fooled into the narrative by the press who sometimes write stories without the actual data. We’ve just been biased by our narrower view from “people like us” and the tech press who are in our same demographic. PHONE CALLS.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2010

But I use this all of the time as a metaphor when talking with entrepreneurs in person and I’ve found it to be a useful way of explaining to entrepreneurs what is going in in the VC’s life. I have no idea why, but that’s always how it always felt to me when I was an entrepreneur raising money.

Venture Capital 275

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Ideas 275

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

I often ask entrepreneurs to consider, “What’s your objective? Venture capital isn’t right for many business but if you do want to raise from a VC at some point you need to understand that often investors care more about growth than profits. They raised $5 million in venture capital to fund growth. What did they actually do?

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

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

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2015

To better understand how the accelerator world has matured beyond Demo Da, I sought out Jason Denenberg, former partner at Angel Capital Group, and current Director of Entrepreneurship at Launch Tennessee (LaunchTN). Savvy entrepreneurs - seek out programs which incorporate these post-graduation activities.

Startup 100

Startup Class LAMP Santa Barbara 100

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 is the CEO of Hunch , company that I believe is solving a very big problem that I have been telling entrepreneurs needs to be solved for the past 2 years. I’ve also found him to not be dogmatic either.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

I spoke a lot about the need for “personal branding” which I plan to write about soon. My mom was an entrepreneur – she was kind of my inspiration for entrepreneurship. And no one could see me as anything but a startup guy, so I started a second company and called myself a serial entrepreneur.

Startup 337

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Venture Capital 337

InfoChachkie

APRIL 9, 2012

These entrepreneurs do not risk everything, work outrageous hours and put themselves under extreme pressure because they want to. If it were a decision to be an entrepreneur, then most right-minded individuals would decide to turn back when they encountered the first inevitable startup crises. Entrepreneurs want to matter.

Startup 243

Startup Ideas Entrepreneur Statistics 243

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

What better than to have capital from somebody who has actually done it in the trenches? Matt’s commitment to re-investing in tech startups is reminiscent to this great Fred Wilson post of “recycling capital. &#. Big thank you to Darius Vasefi , of EyeOnJewels for the write up. combination of factors –.

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” You will learn about running board meetings, setting up the ultimate financial plan, leading a team from the top, dealing with the press, raising capital, etc.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 16, 2013

It is meant to bring everyone together so that they can learn, network and leave with the sense that they now belong to a family of entrepreneurs, all trying to make LA a startup hub. He also went over the common misconceptions people have, dispelling the belief that Silicon Valley is the only place where you can get access to capital.

Rustic Canyon 74

Rustic Canyon Startup Los Angeles Class 74

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

We’re a national venture capital investment firm but with our roots firmly in Los Angeles. We try to hire people who we believe will be upfront and respectful of entrepreneurs and know that it’s far easier to judge ones decisions on the outside than it actually is to have to make the tough decisions inside of a startup every day.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

There have been a lot of entrepreneurs here in software and other industries, and interestingly enough there seem to be more self-funded, bootstrapped firms here, rather than those looking for venture capital to get off the group. The traditional way to handle that is to write code. READ MORE>>.

Networking 214

Networking IBM IBM Pacific Palisades 214

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 15, 2014

From building companies to providing insights across different industries, she’d gotten the full suite of experiences at Techstars (and encourages participation for any entrepreneur). Generally, being a hardware company is a capital intensive process when cash flow is needed to buy equipment up front and sell later.

Outsource Development 108

Outsource Development Startup Incubator Press 108

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 jockey to make sure the press release has our names on it. Bad times often require more capital but ironically this is when capital is dried up. I will write about some of these topics soon.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

TechCrunch Europe ran an article in November of last year that European startups need to work as hard as those in Silicon Valley and I echoed the sentiment in my post about the need for entrepreneurs to be maniacal about their businesses if one wants to work in the hyper competitive tech world. We were based in London.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Conference 308

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’m an entrepreneur at heart so I’m always inspired when I hear stories about innovation. It’s why my investment philosophy is called, “ the entrepreneur thesis.&#. Passionate Entrepreneurs & Ambassadors. You need to have passionate tech entrepreneurs who want to build businesses locally.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

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? To a large degree we rode Amazon’s coattails.

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

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. - Oh, and Demo charges the startups $18,000. Robert’s article is worth reading. It started socially.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307