Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

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. I had to laugh a bit reading it. What about strategy?

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2023

Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Yet I can assure you that people who are paranoid, or want to avoid all risks, won’t be happy as entrepreneurs, so it’s all about balancing the risk-reward scale.

Technical Review 101

Technical Review Patents Ideas Sample 101

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I don’t think most VC’s do. Yes, there is the mythical company you all heard about that walked into Sequoia and had a term sheet 24 hours later.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Startup Google Yammer 291

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In In case it’s not obvious it’s a play on the Nike slogan, “Just Do It.&# ) I believe that being successful as an entrepreneur requires you to get lots of things done. Good entrepreneurs are wrong often.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

Thursday night was the unveiling of the newest batch of Launchpad LA companies. We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. Have a look at the companies below.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. There were tons of young entrepreneurs showing their latest Web 2.0 Ajax was the new buzzword and many companies went overboard. People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product.

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

There’s a line of thinking in Silicon Valley that you should build product businesses rather than services businesses. This thinking is largely driven by the venture capital industry (and subsequently Wall Street) who are in search of high margin, highly scalable businesses. You’re a small fish. They wanted advice.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Yet I can assure you that people who are paranoid, or want to avoid all risks, won’t be happy as entrepreneurs, so it’s all about balancing the risk-reward scale.

Ideas 159

Ideas Tips Technical Review Patents 159

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. One of my goals in doing the show was not only to educate entrepreneurs but also to put a human face on many of the VCs in our industry as VCs can be hard to get to know.

Capital 265

Capital Venture Capital Veoh Startup 265

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC.&# Getting a meeting with a prominent angel or VC is difficult enough. Some advice on how to do that was covered in this link – Getting Access to a VC. If you haven’t read how to build VC relationships and demonstrate traction make sure to read it.

Venture Capital 277

Venture Capital Startup Email News 277

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

John Lusk, along with his Co-Author Kyle Harrison, leveraged their humble company''s newsletter into The MouseDriver Chronicles , a New York Times bestselling book. Upon graduation from Wharton, John and Kyle launched a startup based upon a simple, pedestrian product: a computer mouse shaped like the head of a golf driver.

Newsletter 233

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 233

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. I can’t help feel a bit of rear-view mirror analysis in all of “VC model is broken” bears in our industry. Cloud computing and the open source movements have brought down the costs of starting a company by more than 90%.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

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. We’ll see in time. ” Well.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

John Lusk, along with his Co-Author Kyle Harrison, leveraged their humble company''s newsletter into The MouseDriver Chronicles , a New York Times bestselling book. Upon graduation from Wharton, John and Kyle launched a startup based upon a simple, pedestrian product: a computer mouse shaped like the head of a golf driver.

Newsletter 133

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 133

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Venture Capital is a tricky industry. There were many moments in each space when pioneers were funding startups and the press hadn’t written much about them and if you were a typical investor you were still funding the last trend while some VCs were trailblazing into new categories. Far from it. 6SensorLabs. 6SensorLabs.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 10, 2013

It’s only 12 minutes long and if you’re a first-time entrepreneur (or second time, frankly) I encourage you to watch it if for nothing else than to get a sense that your struggles are universal. Startups are filled with enormously talented people – often product people & engineers. We learn from losses.

Startup 412

Startup Press Course Entrepreneur 412

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc. You’ve got 20 slides and we’re only on page 3. 25% of VCs are expressives, like you.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

After weeks of StartupDemo submissions we are now ready to announce the participating startup companies for the StartupDemo event being held at Wokano Sept. We took great consideration for every startup company that applied. Congratulations to all the selected startup companies! 22, 2010. Want to Sponsor?

Company 106

Company Companies Web Evite 106

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

Creating awareness for your brand and products is one of the lifebloods of technology startups yet in a world where so many companies are being created it becomes difficult to rise above the noise. Ever notice how some companies tend to be in the press all the time and your big new product launch struggled for inches?

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 1, 2009

I was reading one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs, VentureHacks, this weekend and noticed that they are running a long piece on how to pick a co-founder. I recommend that you start a company by yourself and own 100% of it. I recommend that you start a company by yourself and own 100% of it. You’ll be fine.

Startup 289

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Sales 289

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. I quietly watched their success from the sidelines and kept spending time with and telling the CEO, Scott Lahman, that I wanted to invest in his next company.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2015

And every great company is raising at north of a billion dollars now so I need to in order to compete.” In November of 2013 Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures coined the term “ Unicorn Club ” as it relates to billion-dollar startup companies. Many entrepreneurs pitching err on the side of too much information.

Startup 150

Startup Venture Capital Course Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Entrepreneurs could learn about loneliness of success: nobody talks about. As an industry we need to pay attention to those who are struggling as they build their startups and make sure we pay as much attention to the mental stresses of the job as we do to the business challenges like shipping product, hiring staff and raising money.

Press 150

Press Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 150

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. These trends have put pressure on traditional VCs. Surprisinly, this strategy works well with many entrepreneurs. Or at least venture-style returns.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Capital Software Startup 296

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2015

Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Yet I can assure you that people who are paranoid, or want to avoid all risks, won’t be happy as entrepreneurs, so it’s all about balancing the risk-reward scale.

Ideas 106

Ideas Technical Review Patents Entrepreneur 106

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2015

To make this work, you need heavy traffic on your site -- probably at least a million page views per month -- which most sites never achieve in their lifetimes. When Facebook did it a few years ago, the company used more than $100 million in venture capital funding before it became profitable.

Advertising 99

Advertising PPC CPC Sites 99

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 21, 2011

When I first got into VC I decided I better have some investment themes. My macro theme was “great entrepreneurs&# who mapped to my belief system about the kind of entrepreneurs I wanted to work with. They recommend up-sells and cross-sells of products. “People still want calls …&#. Or can they?

Mobile 329

Mobile Advertising Media Marketing 329

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

I know because many entrepreneurs I spend time with I can tell are in their own brains when we’re meeting rather than trying to understand what my position is. You’re in sales mode. Let’s assume you run a Customer Support software company. After that you need to begin discussing your company.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

One of the great joys of doing the web series This Week in VC every week is that I get to spend time with great people debating the issues of our day including how our industry is evolving as well as insights into how companies got started, got their initial traction and dealt with adversities. Oh, yeah.

Startup 286

Startup Venture Capital Web Ideas 286

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2010

TechZulu is helping the startup community out by listing all the great startup/entrepreneur oriented panels. Simply click on the title of the panel you like and you will be taken to their SXSWi panel picker page. Bootstrapping process, product development, Prototyping. . Jason Cohen, Capital Thought. Both cover techni.

Guide 69

Guide Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur 69

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

where entrepreneurs share their stories. 63 Los Angeles Entrepreneurs To Be Proud Of By mario on May 2, 2012 in Features , grid. Free Corporations For First-Time Entrepreneurs. Right now they’re setting up 500 free corporations for first time entrepreneurs. Here are 62 63 Los Angeles entrepreneurs we can be proud of.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

One of the things I discuss the most with the portfolio companies I’m involved with is that “you manage what you measure.”. Make them widely available inside the company and share your most important goals with your board. My experience has proven that even some well known companies are under-whelming in this department.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2010

It’s as good as it gets in personal productivity / life reflection. I know that would be surprising to many readers since keeping a blog somehow convinces people that I’m a time management or productivity ninja. That’s why productivity wasn’t tough for me as a CEO. I’m not. I couldn’t.

Slides 374

Slides Email Entrepreneur Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 9, 2013

I spoke this past week at the LeWeb conference in London, which was a superbly well run event with a very quality production team. And it was convenient for me because we also held our annual London board meeting of DataSift , who helps companies processes and analyze large volumes of social plus enterprise data in realtime.

Marketing 361

Marketing Course Pricing Networking 361

InfoChachkie

JUNE 23, 2011

Messenger : Jason Lehmbeck , Co-Founder and CEO of DataPop , former VP of Emerging Ad Products at Overture Services and Yahoo! We started the company (because) …if you asked the average consumer what they think of the ads they see, if they see them at all, they are largely irrelevant and in many cases annoying. You guys never broke up.

Yahoo 210

Yahoo Startup Advertising Summary 210

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 11, 2013

One of the first questions that I get from many entrepreneurs is “How should I set up my company to minimize my setup costs, tax liabilities, and risk of lawsuits?” Incorporate your startup after the business plan, but before you spend a dollar on product development. I’ll offer you a few simple rules of thumb.

Startup 93

Startup Tips Examples Guide 93

socalTECH

JULY 20, 2011

However, it was an idea and concept which had been brewing for awhile, and besides, I had a personal interest in starting my own company and wanting to be an entrepreneur. However, 18-34 year olds have been in high demand by marketers, TV advertisers, and consumer companies as an audience. It was an eye opener.

News 173

News Entertainment Startup Bertelsmann 173