Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. If you don’t believe in your bones that you’re amazing then it’s no wonder you don’t want to sell them on making the investment.”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds?

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.” I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). ” The new narrative is “will my seed funds be able to fund the prorata of their winners?”

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

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. The industry did that in 2007.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

The traditional way that this type of financing is offered is what is known as “convertible debt.&# This means that the investment does not have a valuation placed on it. They trust the judgment of the VCs to source, finance, help manage and then create some sort of exit for the investments that they make.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

“The climate-oriented investment in Biden’s new plan would be roughly ten times what came through ARRA,” wrote Shayle Kann, a partner with the investment firm, Energy Impact Partners. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. When should a VC invest? Start writing down predictions about people, companies, and markets. It’s the only way forward in capitalism, and it’s worth every investment you can make. How can you practice timing?

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

Responding to Elizabeth Warren’s call to regulate and break up some of the nation’s largest technology companies, the venture capitalists that invest in technology companies are advising the presidential hopeful to move slowly and not break anything. — Balaji S. ”

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” And even the venerable Fred Wilson weighed in with how people “ leading vs. following ” in funding rounds play different roles and have different skills. AngelList 101 : As you know, AngelList is a platform where angels can invest in semi-screened tech deals. Less investments, more active.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. However, they have been sending VCs far more investment checks in the last ten years than they’ve gotten back as distributions.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

Universities have the links you need to patent attorneys, prototyping companies, investment groups, as well as a wealth of peer talent to round out your team and share the work. Write a business plan and pitch deck for learning. Initiate networking to find peer partners and investors. Learning by doing is the only way to go.

Entrepreneur 157

Entrepreneur Mentor Class Resource 157

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. Now investors will pay attention, since scale-up funding is less risky and has a time frame.

Funding 112

Funding Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire 112

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

As a founder, when you’ve been dealing with these kinds of objections for a couple of years it becomes natural and you easily handle objections on price, product & competition without much thought. And the only way to do that is to help them calculate the ROI (return on investment) of using your product.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. From an investor perspective, understanding and acting early to establish a sustainable competitive advantage, and barrier to entry, is the best assurance of a financial return. Effective communication requires real listening, as well as talking.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 111

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2011

The short answer is that by knowing the key members of the management team the VC firm can quickly identify strengths on your time and know whether you have some competitive advantage in your chose field relative to other people with whom you will compete. I know it’s incredibly important to me in my investment decisions.

Slides 296

Slides GRP Partners Venture Capital Writing 296

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

For all the things he’s likely known for, he probably hasn’t yet built a strong relationship as an early stage venture investor (he invests often in later-stage deals where he is very respected). “… for any good investment, from Series A on, there is at least one firm to compete with. Competition is fierce.

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Email 333

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2: As expected at least one person accused me of writing this post because I want to see lower valuations. I have conversations with entrepreneurs and other VCs on a daily basis about fund raising, the prices of deals, how much companies should raise, etc. I acknowledged this in the article. I’m just making the commentary.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. I have no money?

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2010

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Startup 91

Startup Funding Sample Writing 91

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Why you should set up a board at the seed round of funding I know these days with SAFE documents and rolling convertible notes many founders prefer not to set up a board early on. This is the norm and unless you have a hugely competitive round it’s not worth fighting. How does control start to change at the B-round of funding?

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

.” Here’s what I mean … Let’s start with what it takes for a journalist to want to write a story. Do I have an “angle” from which to write the story (first company to do X, company does biggest X, consumer behavior is doing X)? Do I have data or facts to present so the story has legs? Final example.

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 15, 2012

There are many paths into the VC world, but they can generally be lumped into two categories: (i) serial entrepreneurship, and (ii) tech-oriented investment banking. I define a "VC" as, "a professional investor who deploys third-party funds into relatively early-stage companies." Manipulate Your Odds.

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest RSS 242

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Opportunity segmentation and competitive environment. List key competitors and alternatives, highlighting your sustainable competitive advantages, such as patents and trademarks. Yet I continue to get funding requests that never mention any specific plans or costs to be associated with these elements.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Google’s investment in Zynga. Beyond The Rack.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2020

Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. From an investor perspective, understanding and acting early to establish a sustainable competitive advantage, and barrier to entry, is the best assurance of a financial return. Effective communication requires real listening, as well as talking.

Entrepreneur 126

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 126

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

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. I think this is a combination of being realists as venture capitalists that outsized returns in our funds must come from taking on bigger, more impactful projects that can move markets.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 25, 2016

If such write-downs only impacted the faux unicorns and their avaricious investors, there would be little need for alarm. Unfortunately, the coming market correction will reverberate to all stages of venture investing. This is significant because pro rata investors are relatively indifferent as to a future funding round’s valuation.

Startup 100

Startup Entrepreneur Invest Venture Capital 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. For anything that would be considered a normal investment for the partnership most firms try to make sure every partner has seen the deal and has a chance to weigh in.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Startup Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2013

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Sample 92

Sample Writing Startup Summary 92

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

We talked with Noah about how the company grew out of a business plan competition at the University of Southern California, his recent funding from the Maverick Angels, as well as how the firm hopes to stand out among a crowded list of comparison shopping sites. Finally, what are you using your recent funding round for?

USC 207

USC CPC Sites Startup 207

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Services 72

Services Startup Training Writing 72

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 15, 2010

Yet many would-be entrepreneurs feel that they don’t have enough access to investors and that the opportunity to present to a group will help them short circuit the fund raising process. In my next post I will write about one of the five companies. I think most great angel investing is done at a local level.

Angel 254

Angel Startup Tech Coast Angels MyShape 254

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

If you are looking for funding and customers for your new business, you need to identify your “unique selling proposition” (USP) right up front, in 30 seconds or less, to differentiate yourself in today’s information overload. Investor and customer attention spans are short, and both will write you off quickly.

.Net 73

.Net Examples Customer Custom 73

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 21, 2012

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Sample 96

Sample Writing Summary Startup 96