Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 2, 2014

It’s why I called out the importance of “executive coaches” in this post. Given how important people management is it’s surprising more of us don’t have group coaches. I can assure you that move wasn’t a walk in the park for the board. Foursquare? Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai split.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

VCs should be more of a coach than proscriptively telling you what to do. I think of VCs as coaches. But successful coaches find a way to get the most out of all the existing players on the field and avoid too much unnecessary trading. I call them “ VCs Seagulls.” FourSquare. Everywhere.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

Unless you’re SnapChat, Instagram or similar this is probably 3-5 years into your existence. Adding Brett has meant that I could pull up on operational issues because I had somebody far more skilled and fresh grilling the team on these issues and coaching the CEO on planning and structure. In the Growth Years.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

I don’t need to tell you what else is LA … SnapChat, Whisper, Tinder. Maker Studios, the largest producer of online short-form videos (content) recently sold to Disney for nearly $1 billion. All great communication companies. And in commerce we have NastyGal, DailyLook, JustFab and many others. KickStarter?

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2017

Most of the guidance you see for entrepreneurs is aimed at those who are selling a product (Apple, Tesla, Xiaomi), or selling a service (Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat). The challenges for making money and survival in these professional services worlds are different, maybe even tougher.

Social Media