Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2022

With the cost of entry at an all-time low, and the odds of success equally low, more and more entrepreneurs are starting multiple companies concurrently. Other prolific entrepreneurs, like Richard Branson and Elon Musk , simply have several startups on the table at any given moment. Many entrepreneurs love investing in other startups.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2023

If you aren’t willing to take some risk as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect any gain. Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. Others may indeed make good family businesses, but are usually deemed not worth investment.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

Being called a lifestyle entrepreneur should be a point of pride, not an insult. This usually means not taking money from equity investors, since investors want fast growth, high profits, and an exit event, to allow investments to be recouped. I’m told that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook started out as a lifestyle entrepreneur.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

So, to help other female entrepreneurs, they founded TuesdayNights (www.tuesdaynights.org), a group in LA which helps female entrepreneurs connect with capital and each other to improve their access to capital. Melinda Moore: If you think about it, guys have golf courses, and you have things like the PayPal Mafia, and poker games.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

It’s that time of year where we think about new beginnings. Most associates need some entrepreneurial experience before actually making investments. Great networking skills, which are critical when you want to be about to reference entrepreneurs & concepts and bounce your ideas off of other people in the industry.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed. I called an (ex) LP to tell him about her and my goals for her. Leadership is about recognizing your next generation of talent and helping lift them up. Or, maybe it’s just about getting out of the way and watching what they can achieve. I’m only 52!

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

This week I wrote about obsessive and competitive founders and how this forms the basis of what I look for when I invest. I had been thinking a lot about this recently because I’m often asked the question of “what I look for in an entrepreneur when I want to invest?” To invest in your future.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. Of course I went through normal other channels of deal flow. I attended events.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

With the appearance of do-it-yourself services on the Internet, entrepreneur curriculums at every university, and a wealth of new books on the subject, the need for expensive consultants and business advisors has also been mitigated. Minimize investment in prototypes and tooling. Savings here can easily reach another $10K per month.

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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. Much more data in the full post. 94% of all online adults use email.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. I spent a bunch of time thinking about this position — especially since Beezer is an investor in Upfront Ventures. I could go on for a long time.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Of course we fund companies in good markets and bad. To do so we need entrepreneurs who can build companies that scale well in booming markets and also control costs appropriate in correcting markets. Up next I’ll publish all of the LP (people who invest in VCs) data we gathered and what we believe this signifies.

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socalTECH

APRIL 12, 2017

Wallach on investments out of a new fund, Inevitable Ventures. How did you end up here in Los Angeles doing investments? I was the youngest person at the firm, fresh to LA, super excited about everything, and I gravitated towards those smaller deals in the venture space. Ron chose me to manage those investments.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2010

I call it the entrepreneur thesis. I’m not talk about the age old debate amongst investors whether you back entrepreneurs, markets or products (or as people like to hedge – product / market fit). It’s entrepreneurs I back. Today’s post is about my investment thesis. So what is the “entrepreneur thesis?”

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). When Ethan was considering leaving Google we talked about it. What do we like about OpenTable? Let me not bury the lede.

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InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

Someone on Quora recently asked me to answer the following question: Why Do Digital Entrepreneurs Hate MBAs? Tech entrepreneurs' consternation with MBAs does not rise to the level of loathing. As noted in Startup Advice From College Dropouts , successful entrepreneurs are often poor students. Look For MBA Outliers.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

” It’s the most common refrain I hear from investors and even entrepreneurs these days. I hear it right after people have decided to come by for a few days to “check out what all the fuss is about.” Of course that’s not disputable. To some extent – of course they are. Yes, Google won.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2016

Computer Vison Startup Nanit If you follow me on Snapchat ( msuster ) you might already know that I’ve been looking at and investing in a number of companies in the computer vision space. Today I am so excited to announce our latest investment in the category —  Nanit  — which is a smart baby monitor.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2020

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs have new ideas on a regular basis, and find it hard deciding which to pursue, or try to tackle several at the same time. In addition to personal focus, I find that the best entrepreneurs build and demand a culture of focus and excellence in their team, their investors, and even their advisors.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2015

Fred Wilson immediately weighed in on her analysis , a meme was born and we were off to the races talking about “Unicorns.” I’m not talking about raising money at a billion dollars. I’m talking about making your company memorable by describing it with a narrative that people will later remember.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Thus, in my consulting with entrepreneurs, I always encourage them to get more comfortable asking for help. She suspects, like me, that no self-respecting entrepreneur wants to seem weak, needy, or incompetent, and none of us like to feel indebted to someone we see as a peer or a competitor.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

There is much discussion online and also in small, private groups, about why the price of technology companies – public and private – are falling. Most venture capitalists who have been in this business for a long time foresaw this correction and have been talking about it privately for the better part of the last year or two.

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Berkonomics

AUGUST 31, 2023

In 1994, (I know a long time ago), I invested over a million dollars (two million six hundred thousand in today’s dollars) into a company whose entrepreneurs had a vision that I bought into for many reasons, not the least of which was that I had industry experience and understood the need. Fast forward just a few years to 1996.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

My initial reaction to Adeo when we spoke was that while it may have solved some issues (debt versus equity) it didn’t solve the ones that I’ve been warning entrepreneurs about most loudly. A standard entrepreneur retort I heard back then (2008-09) was “I don’t know what my company is worth now.

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Berkonomics

MAY 25, 2023

Of course, you have a vision for what you will do to change the world. First, if your vision is limited and you will be happy with a successful local dry-cleaning enterprise or small restaurant around the corner, you are not the target for this epic effort to help entrepreneurs build great businesses that do change the world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2021

Entrepreneurs who require funding for their startup have long counted on self-accredited high net worth individuals (“angels”) to fill their needs, after friends and family, and before they qualify for institutional investments (“VCs”). Rose, according to his classic book, “ Angel Investing.” All startups always need more money.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

One of the most common questions that entrepreneurs who meet me for the first time like to ask is, “Do you miss being an entrepreneur? If you’ve taken the roller coaster ride that is a startup – you know what I’m talking about. On Being an Entrepreneur. This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. Long hours.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Of course the dirty one took the shower.’ For me, after nearly a decade in the trenches of being an entrepreneur I felt I was un-brainwashed from trying to pretend I had all the answers. The more self-assured the VC is and the more impressionable the entrepreneur is the worse the outcome. ’ ‘No.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2015

I have written about the deceiving nature of early successes before – in particular in the SaaS or B2B world leading to a phenomenon called “shelfware.” This is why I loved Brad Feld’s recent post about the “ illusion of product / market fit.” ” This, too, is a must read for any entrepreneur.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2019

As a mentor to many aspiring entrepreneurs, I challenge them to think beyond what I call linear extensions to a current trend, such as another “easier-to-use” app for smartphones, a new dating site for pets, or another niche social network. Great social entrepreneurs are rare. Do you have the resources to build a business?

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

I often talk about what I’m looking for when I meet with an entrepreneur. Above all else I’m looking for a genuine passion for what the entrepreneur is doing. Of course passion isn’t enough. But without a passion for what you do I am dubious about your chances for success. It seems obvious.

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Berkonomics

APRIL 7, 2022

Years ago, I led a deal and invested in a company that looked like it had lots of promise to disrupt the women’s clothing industry with special algorithms and an online store. An entrepreneur makes a claim that stretches comfort. How about you and your gut feelings? How I didn’t follow my own advice. To my gut response.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2011

I’ve just completed an investment in Ryan Carson’s new company, TreeHouse. I’m investing heavily in Internet video. So I invested in Maker Studios , which is now the 3rd largest producer of Internet video on the web. I will talk much more about Internet TV in a future post. Americans watch 5.3

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Berkonomics

AUGUST 13, 2020

In fact, many angel investors or venture capitalists look for and respect the lessons learned by entrepreneurs that have survived a failed business. The key question is: Why did an entrepreneur fail? Most failed entrepreneurs blame undercapitalization for the cause of the failed business. How about you?

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Berkonomics

MARCH 7, 2019

When you started the business, you took investments from friends and family in small amounts just to get you started. Of course, that worked at the time. Enter the need for larger investments. Investors love to see entrepreneurs who have used their own money to ignite their businesses. Oh, I know. An important exemption.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

He eventually founded and sold consumer health firm ViSalus to a public company and is now back making investments, in technology companies, as a venture capitalist here at Los Angeles-based HashtagOne (www.hashtagone.com). What's the theme of your investments? That's why we have investments in Heal, Saucey, and FragMob.

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