Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

What I’d like to do is tell you the story of how the investment came to be, what my thesis is / was and share some thoughts on macro trends. The Team – I’m on record as saying that 70% of my investment criteria are team related. I’m also on record as saying I invest in lines & not dots. He wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Invest 303

Invest Company Companies Web 2.0 303

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

But being best-in-class at online marketing is also a sine qua non to standout from your peer group. The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. Online marketing uses techniques for driving promotion and place.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

During the Q&A I was asked about how I make investment decisions in early-stage businesses. I know that sounds trite but it’s the best way I can describe my early-stage investments. If I don’t do both then it’s highly unlikely I will invest. I answered in the same way I always do so I thought I’d just write it publicly. “I

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

Most associates need some entrepreneurial experience before actually making investments. Ability to source information easily to help build a thesis around companies / industries / competition. And we had to then build out new marketing materials and a website. I think there are two reasons for this: 1.

Help 365

Help Invest Venture Capital Technical Review 365

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2013

” Most VCs view it as their responsibility to mentor, debate, cajole and generally assist with investments they make. Tomorrow I’m meeting with a senior exec who is considering joining a company in which we’ve invested. Thus, a desire to invest more locally where I think I have a competitive advantage.

Venture Capital 365

Venture Capital Marketing Santa Barbara Startup 365

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

Most of these startups spend the lion’s share of their marketing budget in today’s social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Snap, TikTok and so on because?—?no founders, marketers, investors?—?and Why Did I Invest in Trust? no surprise?—?that’s that’s where the customers are.

Product 424

Product Platform Advertising Acquisition 424

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

they can build teams that really focus on building & marketing great products. My point of view is that most Internet markets create “winner take most&# outcomes where the largest player is super successful and disproportionally less for everybody else. This has been their formula for nearly 15 years. I further that.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2014

Last year at this time I spoke at VidCon and gave this presentation in which I said YouTube was “the Walmart of Online Video” but I also commented that I felt YouTube was vulnerable to competition because their rev share to MCNs wasn’t high enough to allow MCNs to build a profitable business inside of YouTube.

Invest 291

Invest Content Media Networking 291

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 26, 2010

Competition. And the reality is that if you have no competition it will likely be perceived as a negative, not positive. And the reality is that if you have no competition it will likely be perceived as a negative, not positive. where do you need to make investments to make up ground and therefore need capital?).

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Slides Competition Education 313

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2022

Don’t bash the competition. Every investor knows how vulnerable a new startup is to competitors, so investors always ask about your sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. They are also seeking to find out how you handle one of the many tough questions that a new founder will get in today’s market.

Competition 133

Competition Patents Resource Invest 133

Berkonomics

JULY 6, 2017

Know your market and competition, or don’t spend a dime on anything else. Well, here is one of those, and it deals with market research first and foremost. Here’s where some intelligent market research might have saved the company and my investment. There is no competition.” Back to 1996.

Competition 266

Competition Research Summary Pricing 266

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

In case you hadn’t noticed, the key elements of a competitive advantage for your business have changed as businesses move online, and your domain is instantly global. As a business advisor, I have to recommend even to established companies that they review and revamp their competitive strategy now, even if it appears to be working today.

Competition 142

Competition Software Review Social Media Customer 142

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2019

Don’t bash the competition. Every investor knows how vulnerable a new startup is to competitors, so investors always ask about your sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. They are also seeking to find out how you handle one of the many tough questions that a new founder will get in today’s market.

Competition 120

Competition Patents Resource Invest 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

Compelling in the sense that you solve a real problem a target group of potential customers has with a product that is significantly better than the alternatives on that market. In my opinion no amount of clever marketing or chest beating at conferences can create a market if you don’t have an amazing product to begin with.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Thus began my marketing campaign. Competitive (Athlete: skier & rowed at Princeton, hates losing at everything she does). Investment experience (5 years a VC at Battery Ventures). For starters we’re an LA-based venture fund who invests nationally (and sometimes internationally, but less so). billion).

Venture Capital 408

Venture Capital Startup Outsource Development CitySearch 408

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2014

Companies are now raising much more capital in the private markets now before they go public. to raise “opportunity funds” to fund the prorata participation of their best early-stage investments. Of course the concentration of capital in growth firms and the intense competition to fund the best deals leads to some risks.

Venture Capital 362

Venture Capital Capital Startup Writing 362

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and The core of the investing job of course is investing dollars into startup companies and helping as a mentor, advisor and board member on the companies in which you’ve invested. She had all of the skills and traits we sought?—?leadership,

Venture Capital 361

Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Berkonomics

APRIL 11, 2019

An entrepreneur pitches using a deck with no slide for competition. We have no competition.”. That statement has killed more investment deals than almost any other. Perhaps buyers cannot obtain attractive financing in the current market. When asked (as we always do,) the response is “This is new.

Competition 120

Competition Slides Research Sales 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

They have seen one side of a market where many of us have seen the ebb and flow multiple times. Still, market amnesia by ordinarily rational actors always surprises me. I believe a bubble occurs when a market is willing to pay greater than intrinsic value for an asset class. I spoke about a lot of things during the keynote.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

socalTECH

MARCH 18, 2014

near real-time automated intelligence gathering systems that scour public and private data sources like websites, blogs, social media and email to unearth information businesses can use for competitive advantage. Bitvore, led by Jeff Curie, said that it has developed a.

Software 227

Software IBM IBM Social Media 227

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

With more competition in early-stage many VCs are investing smaller amounts at earlier stages. In the last 90′s it was impossible to charge fair prices for products & services in a market where you had 5 competitors giving away free products to acquire “eyeballs&# and fueled by an excess of venture capital.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Capital Cloud Computing Marketing 289

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

I actually really enjoyed many of the points Muhammad made about marketing in general and I found myself nodding through the entirety of the article except for it’s core premise. It’s about looking out for and catching the next major marketing wave before others have grokked it. I laughed as I did at much of his rant.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review SEM SEO Marketing 384

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

One of our core tasks was “market analysis,&# which consistent of: market sizing, market forecasts, competitive analysis and then instructing customers on which direction to take. I was in the midst of sizing the mobile handset markets in 3 regions: US, Europe and Asia. Nobody was surprised. I encourage it.

Statistics 415

Statistics Startup Report Research 415

socalTECH

JANUARY 22, 2019

This morning's interview is with Kevin O'Connor , a longtime investor and serial entrepreneur, who is now running venture capital investment firm ScOp Venture Capital. Just this past September was a year with Amazon, when I left, and we started investing in September under the new name, ScOp Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 145

Venture Capital Startup Invest Capital 145

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Let me start by saying that Clayton is one of the most influential people on my thoughts about markets that led to both the concept behind my first startup and my main theses in investing. We spoke about what succeeds early in technology market evolutions. As markets grow, the more open and modular systems win.

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 10, 2021

Overall, Klarna is live in 20 markets, has more than 90 million global active users and more than 2 million transactions a day conducted on its platform. We’ve scaled up so massively in investments in our growth and technology, but running on a loss is very odd for us,” he told TechCrunch. “We We will get back to profitability soon.”.

Los Angeles 266

Los Angeles Funding CIO Marketing 266

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

Venture capital is in the process of its own creative destruction with new market entrants and new models of innovation at the precise moment that our industry itself is contracting. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well. When I built my first company starting in 1999 it cost $2.5

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software Capital Startup 334

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Scott Kupor of A16Z responded with a comprehensive overview of valuation methodology in a post that while accurate feels more targeted at sophisticated Limited Partners (LPs) who invest in funds. billion (and their stake worth $237 million not $3 billion) — the reported value at which they invested in the last round. We can’t know.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Invest Funding Competition 264

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to “change the trajectory&# for Seattle or for any regional market, really. It’s why my investment philosophy is called, “ the entrepreneur thesis.&#. As I gear up to give a keynote at the annual Seattle 2.0 Are you going to do all of this?

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

The framework of his book has profoundly altered how I think about the technology market and affects how I thought about building my businesses and how I think about investing in venture capital. Let’s start with the incumbents position in a market. I’ve characterized it in a chart below. So what did happen?

Startup 376

Startup Framework Marketing Customer 376

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

The reason for this is that the executives who founded the company have so much tacit knowledge of how to position their product relative to the competition that they can easily win campaigns when they’re involved. So I often work with teams to get them to codify the key things they do well that the competition does not.

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

And while the grocery delivery market has become increasingly competitive, Hall argued that Good Eggs stands out thanks to the quality and breadth of its products — 70% of its products are locally sourced, and it often delivers them within 48 hours of harvesting. That’s a meaningful increase in our addressable market.”

Southern California 318

Southern California Orange County San Diego Commerce 318

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

Every investment so far in this YC batch (and there have been a lot) has been done on a convertible note.&#. I have to say that I didn’t take the question to mean that convertible debt had won for the entire market, but either way it’s clear that convertible debt has become an increasing trend.

Equity 319

Equity Pricing Venture Capital Entrepreneur 319

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

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Many MBA programs still cater too much to the needs of large, corporate management jobs or prepare students to enter big consulting companies or investments banks. My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. In my post I specifically talked about the integration of marketing and sales.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319