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The Case for Optimism and Risk at Startups

Both Sides of the Table

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. uBeam’s tech does work and I have safely seen it demo’d in the real life many times. Entrepreneurs. ” **.

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7 Scenarios Where A Business Plan Is Still An Asset

Startup Professionals Musings

As a startup mentor and investor, I am approached regularly by aspiring entrepreneurs who assert that business plans take too much time, are inaccurate, and rarely add value. In fact, they are probably in such a hurry to give you money that they don’t want you to waste time writing anything down and passing it along to new investors.

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How Many Entrepreneurs Really Need a Business Plan?

Startup Professionals Musings

On a regular basis, I am approached by entrepreneurs who assert that business plans are a waste of time. They cite sources like a recent BusinessWeek story, “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ” and this NY Times article. With bootstrapping, no business plan is expected by anyone.

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Ryan Blair, HashtagOne: From Gang Member, To Entrepreneur, To Anti-VC

socalTECH

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). So, now, as a VC, I swore I'd never treat entrepreneurs like those VCs treated me. I love entrepreneurs.

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Investors Seek Entrepreneurs With Fire in the Belly

Startup Professionals Musings

I’ve noticed that some entrepreneurs seem to have no trouble attracting investors, while others with a great business plan struggle with it. On the top line, angel investors look to invest in entrepreneurs that have an almost unwavering passion and sense of urgency. Here are some key ones they look for: Talks and writes well.

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Some Career Advice for Aspiring Tech CEOs

Both Sides of the Table

Of course you could start your own company. Of course I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t start a company. For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.”

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The Changing Structure of the VC Industry

Both Sides of the Table

Just 3 years ago there was talk of institutional investors “not being able to write small enough checks.” Many pension funds are simply too large to write small checks and favor the ability to write $50-100 million checks to funds. ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m Why is this?