Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. It turns out it actually takes time to build a high-growth business with differentiated intellectual property and roll out large, enterprise-class marketing solutions. 5 years ago. 5 years ago. ” Yup.

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly? Short answer – yes.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Startup Invest Funding 263

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

My primary role was “chief psychologist&# and as I’ve learned over the past few years the same has been true as a VC. I finally got around to writing it having read Fred Wilson’s post about what a CEO does. As a VC you see the insides of companies rather than the companies positive spin on TechCrunch.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Sales Customer 319

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%). A day after I published this Changing Structure of VC article I noticed at least one “Angel Prorata Fund” on AngelList.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 17, 2020

Here is a class of investor we’ve covered before, one usually focused upon you and less upon your business case. There are other classes of equity investors for small or early stage businesses that we have not yet considered. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000. Venture farms.

Equity 156

Equity Technical Review Class Organization 156

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. I just completed an exercise where I went out to hire a new associate for my VC firm, GRP Partners.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

seed and they are writing $1.25m of it you can expect them to require a board seat) The competitive landscape (If you have several sources of capital you can likely politely decline the board request or can grant them a seat but ask for it to be “common appointed” and those revokable if you need in the future). But it’s quite rare.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

VC's love to talk about their successes. Yet most VC's bury their failures under six feet of denial. In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. As noted in What Does VC Traction Really Mean? , What’s The Worst Mistake? > -jeff.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

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. His class reading lists could be a primer for any entrepreneur, not just MBAs.

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “ Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts? The truth is I have been thinking a lot about the topic, I just haven’t been writing about it. I plan to write about this phenomenon soon. Please watch this.

Entrepreneur 341

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Blogging 341

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

I told him only 2 weeks ago when we were in London together that I wanted to write a blog post that has been in my head for 2 years. I knew him well before he became a VC. I knew his as he considered becoming a VC and we talked a lot about how it was going for me in my early years. I’ve been told so. Sounds obvious.

Startup 309

Startup Venture Capital Email Writing 309

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to write it because I have mixed feelings about AngelList. I didn’t want to write it because the bloggosphere doesn’t always do nuance well. So why I am writing it then? That’s less interesting for me as a VC.

Venture Capital 267

Venture Capital Writing Blogging Startup 267

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2017

I was influenced heavily before my career even began because in my undergraduate work I took a ton of statistics classes that showed how easily we human brains fall prey to easy biases and slights of data and try to draw conclusions that don’t exist. I read it just after I entered the Venture Capital industry more than a decade ago.

Venture Capital 182

Venture Capital Statistics Writing Report 182

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

Recruiting – One of the hardest tasks of any startups is recruiting world-class talent. Fund Raising – No self respecting VC would admit (even to themselves) that they are influenced by what they read about you in the press. It doesn’t work that way. PR pays dividends in Biz Dev. ” See points 1-6.

Press 415

Press Google Course Writing 415

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She hasn’t raised any venture capital. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. Sam is the managing director of Launchpad LA and we were about to pick our 2012 class of entrepreneurs. That may soon change.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Your goal should be to turn your VCs into extended members of your team to get real value from them. Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. He is very pleasant when he calls and writes.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

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. Now the AP class.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

“Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

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 haven’t hit that wall yet for three reasons: 1) not enough elapsed time, 2) the VC market is frenzied now, too and 3) we haven’t seen a market downturn since the volume picked up.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

I would never as a VC fund a round and then expect somebody else to pay a higher price right after me. I also would never expect another VC to do that to me. The trouble is, nobody has an incentive to agree to write the first check. They share in liquidation preferences pari passu and they vote as a single class.

Pricing 294

Pricing Venture Capital Writing Equity 294

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

Even venture capitalists who sit on boards where they have significant investments often forget this point. They write into their investment documents that they will occupy a seat on the board for as long as they are invested in the company, thinking of this as a protection for their investment and tool for them to influence growth.

Class 179

Class Coach Invest Sales 179

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. Writing a book will be fun. Stuart is well worth following on Twitter & now that’s he’s a VC he is likely to share his wisdom more freely. You hire people who look good on paper. You REALLY know.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2013

When I sit down to write every week I never really imagine what is going to end up resonating the most with people but it seems I’ve most often been defined by my post that I Invest in Lines, not Dots. He was in the inaugural class of 500Startups and became chief evangelist as far as I could tell. Sam had different plans.

Startup 372

Startup Course Ideas Invest 372

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

.” I applaud all efforts by people to take on this issue and especially be Adeo who – let’s be honest – was really the first champion of trying to make the VC world more transparent by launching TheFunded, which didn’t exactly endear him to VCs initially. They’ll get priced soon enough by a VC.”

Startup 354

Startup Pricing Equity Venture Capital 354

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Last year I was on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley meeting with one of the most prominent venture capital firms in the country. The VC partner, somebody I greatly respect said, “Yeah, we like Gil and what they’re doing. We have world-class universities like Caltech, UCLA, USC and more. In our regions?

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

It’s why the first company I ever invested in as a VC – Invoca – just announced a $20 million funding by Accel Partners. 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. PHONE CALLS.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Today I’m handing her the largest A-round check I’ve ever written as a VC as we lead her $10 million A-Round at uBeam. As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. Would they build a world class team.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. What was nice was that I got to take some of my practical skills from consulting and apply them into class discussions with operational leaders. No prizes for guessing how my VC chats went.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My original thinking from Oct ’09 was, while I didn’t (and still don’t) have a crystal ball I worried that: consumers were over-stretched with debt (and make up 77% of the economy), unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of M&A activity and VC investment even further.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

I interviewed Eric for an hour for - This Week in Venture Capital. 36:30 Eric: Social media is great for people with social capital. 41:00 Transitioning from software to writing. 1:05:35 Middle class job of the next generation: software development! ” This week was no exception. Will these norms change?

Social Media 301

Social Media Startup Metrics Media 301

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

I recommend that you start by writing down the attributes you would want people to think about when they think about your brand. World-class education including Caltech, USC and UCLA. Think about venture capital. But if you were going to start a venture capital fund today, you’d want to stand out.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles Woodland Hills 304

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2017

It’s why I try to write about and be available to people who suffer from depression. It’s why I try to be open about how stressful being a founder really was and how stressful being a VC is even for an obviously “privileged class” and how physically unhealthy being a founder was to me.

Carson 286

Carson Email Writing Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

No rule is ever absolute no matter how it sounds when one writes a blog. My company had raised venture capital in April 2001 but we were told that there may never be any more coming. We let everybody “punch above their weight class&# in terms of roles & responsibilities. We all learned.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Sales Software Review 285

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. You’re not lecturing to a college class, you’re not at a cocktail party and you’re not chatting with a small group in a board meeting. Or take an acting class. I spoke about this yesterday on Fox Business News.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. I said that I felt that Micro-VCs were the most important change in our industry. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs. I believe that.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

We'd do a Series A, and participate in the Series B, but when companies hit breakout, we would call a late stage VC and have them price the deal, and do all of that. We can now write $20M, $25M, and $30M checks to existing, breakout companies in our portfolio. With this fund, we do not have a cap limit on late stage investments.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

This does not mean you shouldn’t solve big, complex problems or write complex code. You imagined him as the kid in your class at school at the front of the room raising his hand at every question and saying, “Oooh, me. In a VC pitch this type of messaging will do just fine. Before that he was a US senator.

Entrepreneur 370

Entrepreneur Startup Press Venture Capital 370