Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

Because my role as a VC requires me to take and endless stream of meetings I long ago decided I need to learn as much as I can from the meetings I attend so I often just ask tons of questions and assimilate knowledge. When I think about what defines us as a VC I think: Operationally knowledgeable / strong startup competence.

Venture Capital 360

Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

These often lead to angel investors and venture capital investments later, or connections to local company venture funds for selected focus and technology areas. Access to entrepreneurs-in-residence, business mentors. Most schools have a rich pipeline of real-world executive volunteers available for mentoring.

Entrepreneur 110

Entrepreneur Class Startup Resource 110

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2023

Identify customer executives who need your solution. Many savvy entrepreneurs are able to convince high-potential customers that investing early in a high-value solution, perhaps through an advance on royalties, is in their best interest. Reach out to your biggest fans for investor leads.

Statistics 98

Statistics Entrepreneur Funding Social Media 98

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. And that person has almost certainly chosen specifically to be a startup lawyer over serving other types of customers because he or she enjoys working with entrepreneurs. See there are tons of people who play the role of mentor in their own capacity.

Startup 363

Startup Venture Capital Coach Press 363

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 22, 2020

Identify customer executives who need your solution. Many savvy entrepreneurs are able to convince high-potential customers that investing early in a high-value solution, perhaps through an advance on royalties, is in their best interest. Reach out to your biggest fans for investor leads.

Funding 173

Funding Tips Startup Statistics 173

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Seed-stage, meanwhil e, is technically that critical period when you need funding to do solution- and business-model development, to prove that your new product or service works, before you try to sell it to customers.

Funding 104

Funding Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding 104

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She hasn’t raised any venture capital. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. She focused on her customer. I blog on entrepreneurship & VC precisely because entrepreneurs and other VCs are my customers.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels.

Technical Review 138

Technical Review Startup Innocal Offshore 138

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue). Different types of investors tend to specialize in capitalizing on businesses at different stages. Don’t sign up for one, expecting the other.

Funding 125

Funding Startup Ideas Equity 125

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

As a startup mentor, I’m always amazed that some entrepreneurs seem to be an immediate hit with investors, while others struggle to get any attention at all. Finally I realized that venture capital and angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary. Message delivery must be customized for each investor.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 111

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2022

In my experience as an advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs in business, one of the biggest failures I see is a lack of self-leadership. Your character, as a business leader, will determine your perceived reputation by peers in business, team members, and customers. Build positive psychological capital to sustain your business.

Capital 114

Capital Coach Satisfaction Ideas 114

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2022

People can build great ecommerce sites with free tools, smartphone apps in their spare time and use crowdfunding to bypass the dreaded angel funding and venture capital penalties. Based on my own experience mentoring real entrepreneurs and likely candidates, there are at least eight categories of non-starters.

Entrepreneur 153

Entrepreneur Startup Ideas Knowledge Base 153

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

iChange offers up a site for personal counseling from licensed nutritionists, combined with custom meal plans and support groups. iChange has previously raised funding from business mentoring firm and incubator Momentum Ventures. iChange has previously raised funding from business mentoring firm and incubator Momentum Ventures.

El Segundo 147

El Segundo CitySearch .Net Incubator 147

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2020

These often lead to angel investors and venture capital investments later, or connections to local company venture funds for selected focus and technology areas. Access to entrepreneurs-in-residence, business mentors. Most schools have a rich pipeline of real-world executive volunteers available for mentoring.

Class 124

Class Startup Resource Mentor 124

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

The final clip is Fred & I talking about whether “the best product wins” and my assertion that the bias in today’s Silicon Valley dominated tech world there is probably too much emphasis on tech at the expense of how to sell, implement and service customers. You can’t time VC investing markets.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Writing Blogging 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” Negotiate an advance from a strategic partner or customer. Solicit venture capital investors. Another common example is exchanging equity for legal and accounting support.

Startup 106

Startup Capital Equity Funding 106

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

I don’t think any serious VC or angel thought it was “collusion.&# They could chat about it with their peers or mentors. I just had this chat last night with a friend / VC who I respect. I get many requests from recent graduates asking if I’d meet for a coffee or be a mentor. Examples: Bin38.

Email 287

Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue). Different types of investors tend to specialize in capitalizing on businesses at different stages. Don’t sign up for one, expecting the other.

Startup 148

Startup Ideas Equity Invest 148

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2020

As a startup mentor, I’m always amazed that some entrepreneurs seem to be an immediate hit with investors, while others struggle to get any attention at all. Finally I realized that venture capital and angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary. Message delivery must be customized for each investor.

Entrepreneur 126

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 126

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

I admit that I haven’t yet read it but I’ve had numerous discussions with Brad over the years about board structure & conduct and consider him a mentor on the topic. When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Mentorship.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2020

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” Negotiate an advance from a strategic partner or customer. Solicit venture capital investors. Another common example is exchanging equity for legal and accounting support.

Funding 174

Funding Startup Equity Examples 174

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

LaunchpadLA, which is among a number of startup accelerators which have emerged over the past few years and turned Los Angeles into one of the hottest startup markets in the nation, offers up $100,000 in an investment, free office space for four months, and access to mentors. READ MORE>>.

Class 168

Class Startup Web Design Mentor 168

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 20, 2014

In addition, Entrepreneur Magazine recently included UCSB in its Top 50 Schools For VC Backed Entrepreneurs at number 37. A decent showing, but well below a number of larger schools, as the ranking is based on the number of graduates who secured VC funding.

Santa Barbara 258

Santa Barbara Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 258

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Our founder, Yves Sisteron, was my mentor and board member at my first startup. Stuart is well worth following on Twitter & now that’s he’s a VC he is likely to share his wisdom more freely. Neither is very strategic nor in the best interest of either set of customers that VCs have (portfolio companies & LPs).

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Funding Innocal Offshore 124

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

YOU Selling – My wise old friend & mentor, Ameet Shah, once told me after a meeting we had with clients (when I worked at Accenture), “there are two ways to run a meeting: asking or telling. Let’s assume you run a Customer Support software company. But how to apply “listening&# in a sales meeting?

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. Deal evaluations the Foundry way, which continues into a great discussion about VC decision-making processes. “So Brad’s start in Venture Capital. was starting. Protocol Digital Life.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

One of the interesting things about being a VC is that you often see companies in transition. In a VC business when you raise additional capital you need to “level up” and act the round you are. You’re the coach, mentor, cheerleader. But your job isn’t to make every decision for him.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2019

People can build great ecommerce sites with free tools, smartphone apps in their spare time and use crowdfunding to bypass the dreaded angel funding and venture capital penalties. Based on my own experience mentoring real entrepreneurs and likely candidates, there are at least eight categories of non-starters.

Startup 126

Startup Ideas Entrepreneur Knowledge Base 126

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue). Different types of investors tend to specialize in capitalizing on businesses at different stages. Don’t sign up for one, expecting the other.

Startup 93

Startup Funding Venture Capital Ideas 93

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I acted as the occasional mentor, advisor and coach to Ethan. And because I wanted Ethan to be able to attract a great team, build & iterate a product, test it with initial customers and refine his strategy before having to take the wrappers off of his company. The company was called Red Beacon. So there you have it.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2019

In fact, he had four development co-founders, built a relationship with Peter Thiel, a top VC who invested early, and enticed Sheryl Sandberg to fill the COO role he sorely needed. Bill Gates , for example, shared a common curiosity and mentoring relationship with Warren Buffet, although their business domains were quite different.

IBM 87

IBM IBM Ideas Technical Review 87

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2019

In my experience as an advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs in business, one of the biggest failures I see is a lack of self-leadership. Your character, as a business leader, will determine your perceived reputation by peers in business, team members, and customers. Build positive psychological capital to sustain your business.

Coach 70

Coach Satisfaction Ideas Entrepreneur 70

socalTECH

DECEMBER 10, 2010

Clearstone Ventures (www.clearstone.com). Venture capital for innovators. Custom Insurance Programs for Technology Companies. With Vistage, you'll benefit from: Advisory Board Peer Group Meetings; Private 1-to-1 Mentoring Sessions; Expert Speaker Workshops; Content and Connectivity Online. Think Glendale.

SoCalTech 127

SoCalTech Advertising Rustic Canyon Glendale 127

Tech Coast Venture Network

APRIL 22, 2010

With rare exception, you will need to finance personally (or with friends and family to the point of revenue and/or significant customer pre-order or commitment). Angel Investors & Venture Capital. If you are pre-revenue, have pre-sales, letters of intent and/or customer commitments. Friends and Family.

Startup 124

Startup Tech Coast Angels TCVN Incubator 124

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 20, 2011

Please join TechZulu as well as Los Angeles tech savvy elite comprised of VC’s, Angels investors, startups and your fellow entrepreneurs, as we celebrate LA’s most exciting tech creations of the moment with the brightest digital minds and engineering talents this side of Fresno. Custom ad deals and partnerships.

CalTech 79

CalTech Idealab Tech Coast Angels Enterprise Forum 79

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

Also be careful about VCs. But once a VC has heard your idea he can’t “un-think&# it. They certainly struggle to find mentors as there is nothing more frustrating than trying to help a company who is afraid to tell you anything. Be careful about this advice. I call this “marketing futures.&# You don’t.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380