Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2013

This week I attended the All Things D Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes. And when asked who has inspired him he of course gave a nod to Nikola Tesla. His imagination of what is wrong with VC has captured perfectly in satirical format what ails our industry. It is Nikolas Tesla pitching a VC firm. He knew me then.

Venture Capital 315

Venture Capital Rancho Palos Verdes Entrepreneur Ideas 315

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. In case VC’s haven’t figured this out yet, shit rolls downhill. My blog linked to Brad Feld’s blog because I was so grateful for his series on term sheets and he was one of the biggest reasons that as a VC I felt compelled to blog. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 29, 2014

And being persistent I believe is the most important attribute for success in an entrepreneur (assuming of course that you have all the other requisite skills). Of course at one end of the bucket are entrepreneurs who are persistent but just aren’t polite. How do you get on elusive calendars or invited to speak at conference?

Venture Capital 389

Venture Capital Email Startup Conference 389

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. Of course I went through normal other channels of deal flow. It was … VCs need proprietary deal flow. What kind of deals should I be doing?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” My favorite new VC blogger, Hunter Walk, weighed in with some thoughtful comments about how Syndicates might actually pit, “ angel vs. angel.” Bowery Capital).

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

And there’s none that makes me happier than to announce that Jordan Hudson has been promoted to a Principal at Upfront Ventures. What is a principal at a VC firm and how does it work at Upfront Ventures? ” Associates have different functions at different VCs. VC firm admin. Portfolio community building.

Help 365

Help Invest Venture Capital Technical Review 365

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2016

Today is amongst the proudest days I’ve had at Upfront Ventures — getting the chance to announce that Kevin Zhang has been promoted to Partner. years at Upfront has been both a pleasure and also has taught me a lot about venture capital. And of course it doesn’t hurt that Kevin is fluent in Mandarin.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Invest Course 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. “I don’t know the exact math, but I hear it again and again: the top 2% of firms generate 98% of the returns in venture capital.” As you can see from the chart their data suggests there are about $25 billion of VC distributions per year in the US. Their data looks at tech VCs.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

My friend and fellow SoCal venture capitalist Peter Lee wrote a post about the different roles within a VC and spent much time on the role of an associate. These are the permanent members of a VC. The process for raising money from a VC is a sales process and as such much of what is taught in enterprise sales can be applied.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Sales Entrepreneur Startup 308

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2017

We’re expected to be at conferences, events, sales meetings and be publicly visible. Having interesting and frequent opportunities at the top of your funnel is important, of course, but the ultimate score is only measured on the bottom end of the funnel. People expect blog posts, Tweets, panels, speeches.

Activity 297

Activity Blogging Email Startup 297

socalTECH

DECEMBER 30, 2019

Though the Alliance is still committed to hosting select regional convenings like First Look SoCal and our SoCal Ecosystem Leadership Conference, we recognize that the region already is filled with numerous events targeted at start-ups and entrepreneurs. This came through loud and clear at our recent regional leadership conference.

SoCal 140

SoCal Southern California Startup Venture Capital 140

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

His ideas to date hadn’t totally resonated and of course ideas matter, too. One VC firm who decided to invest – High Peaks – liked the deal so much that one of their team members, Rahul Gandhi left to join MakeSpace! The first one out even won a major tech conference award. Of course there is competition!

UCSD 340

UCSD Startup Ideas Course 340

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

As I’ve written about before, You’d Have to be a Big Baby to Complain about Being a VC. You probably follow some high-profile entrepreneurs on Instagram and Twitter and see conference pictures of them in Davos, Mexico, Monaco or wherever. There is a difference between a Conference Ho and a successful entrepreneur.

Blogging 420

Blogging Press Entrepreneur Venture Capital 420

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Much has been written about when it is time to hire a “professional CEO” to run a startup company and of course that has long been a norm in Silicon Valley when founders find that their inexperience may be a limiting factor in company growth ( know as the Peter Principle ). and Microsoft had become.

CTO Hire 309

CTO Hire Organization Google Course 309

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. Of course that website isn’t completely up to date but it’s a great resource for seeing the overall picture. The first investment I ever made as a VC was in a company now called Invoca.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Xconomy

MAY 29, 2020

Today a virtual version of the ASCO conference, the cancer field’s largest, kicks off, with oncologists and others tuning in from throughout the country and around the world to check out the latest in cancer research. A year ago about 40,000 people gathered in Chicago for the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Screening 67

Screening Conference Research Course 67

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

But of course it’s hard to advise people that they should do PR without a guide to how to do it on the cheap or how to do it at all. Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. When to start PR? Should any money go to PR at all?

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

Of course it makes no sense to have great people management and a crappy product. ” Of course we all go into businesses expecting to be aligned with our co-founders but over time life changes. I have seen it first-hand in my VC career many, many times. And, yes, it is politics at its purest. We sat down the three of us.

Startup 340

Startup Technical Review Course Press 340

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. Of course I went through normal other channels of deal flow. There is one source I never liked and no early-stage VC should – investment bankers.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2020

Key sources of financial capital for any startup community must include friends and family, local angel investors, and venture capital access. Of course, ultimately you must appeal to real customers to survive. Cultural capital – mindset, behaviors, history. Cocktail party networking is not enough.

Resource 131

Resource Startup Capital Mentor 131

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. You can of course view the presentation in SlideShare above or download it directly for free here. Venture capital will be easy and then hard. Final le web london (june 2013) from Mark Suster.

Marketing 361

Marketing Course Pricing Networking 361

socalTECH

MAY 10, 2018

Behzad Kianmahd is the co-founder of Los Angeles coworking space Cross Campus , which is one of the major centers of startup activity in Silicon Beachand also involved as co-founder and lead investor in a brand new, venture capital fund, TAU Ventures (www.ideasimmersion.com/tau-ventures/).

El Segundo 100

El Segundo Southern California Startup Santa Monica 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2018

Investors are human, after all Come up with a valid reason because they know in communicating with founders if there’s no reason to say “no” you can generate bad will Risk missing out on an inflection point: Investors of course are also concerned about saying “no” too early in the process when they can “hang around the rim” and see what happens?

Funding 189

Funding Software Review Entrepreneur Venture Capital 189

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

I am a VC. But through expressing points-of-view I can raise above the consciousness of my customers (entrepreneurs and limited partners who invest in VC funds) in ways that I couldn’t without breaking through the noise of the hundreds of others of VCs who also have money. ” Of course not. I hand out money.

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

billion in venture capital to LA’s technology startups and 2014 will shatter that figure. Over the past 4 years LA’s tech fundings have growing at a 30% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) which is > 4 times the US average VC CAGR (7%). billion (Upfront Ventures was an early Overture backer). Structural.

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

socalTECH

JANUARY 27, 2010

It costs anywhere from $200 to $300 a month per workstation, which is full service gross, Internet, and shared equipment and conference rooms. We put out an RFQ to all sorts of venture capital firms in California, in order to be the fiscal steward of that money. What led the City of Ventura to start an incubator?

Ventura 200

Ventura Incubator Technology Startup 200

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 5, 2010

The reason is that conferences usually pack them up with speakers to maximize the number of high profile guests in attendance to sell more general admission tickets. Tags: VC Industry. I have often complained how much I hate sitting on panels. So with a panel of 5-6 people and 30-45 minutes it’s hard to have a real conversation.

CalTech 222

CalTech Startup Santa Monica Venture Capital 222

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. Of course back then it literally was sold in a package and stored on a shelf! People attending marquee conferences with rock bands, prominent speakers, Gartner Group prognosticators and lots of other happy customers.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

I think many board members (including VCs) were trained 10+ years ago when life was very different and their advice often comes from an outdated lens. One of the advantages of blogging, using social media, public speaking, etc as a VC is that you get a more nuanced view of these shifts by watching your own successes and failures.

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

I rarely talk to any startup entrepreneur or VC who doesn’t feel it and somehow long for simpler times despite the benefits we all enjoy from increased enthusiasm for our sector. Of course your friend’s company raised $50 million and offers it’s employees free kombucha and desk massages. Year in, year out.

Software Review 150

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. Elect 1-2 representatives and even invite a local VC to invest personally and sit on the investment committee or be an advisor.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Press San Diego 378

Technology Council

JULY 29, 2008

Angels, private equity investors, investment bankers, and, of course, a who’s who of the VC community will be on hand to see [.] Only 12 companies will have the chance to convince the biggest gathering of technology investors to be assembled in Southern California this year that theirs is the company that deserves to be funded.

VentureNet 100

VentureNet Southern California Capital Venture Capital 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

I’m not going to cover in this post the obvious post-show marketing tasks such as following up on all those business cards you grabbed, communicating with all those people who registered at your site and leveraging your new found fame to score venture capital. If you need VC, no better time than the present.

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 21, 2014

Introducing Bitcoinference | A Decentralized Conference , hosted by illustrious startup accelerator, 500 Startups. And of course, to extend a supportive and educated hand to inquisitive friends and acquaintances – through social media, fact checking, and a call to disconnect from toxic news stories.

Startup 104

Startup Venture Capital Draper Invest 104

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

It’s why I love the idea of the FailCon conference and hope to speak there one day. He is also out with a brilliant new book, “ The Startup Owners Manual ” and a new FREE courses on entrepreneurship at Udemy , which are here. 49:30 Steve: When’s the last time venture capital actually led an innovation?

Startup 350

Startup Ideas Education Class 350

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

So it was my great pleasure to host Chamillionaire on This Week in VC this week talking marketing, entrepreneurship, old media and, of course, music. Authenticity - I asked Chamillionaire why he thinks he connects so much with people at tech conferences. People want what they can’t have and VCs are no different. .’

Entrepreneur 356

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Email 356