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Why Has LA Suddenly Gotten So Much Attention from VCs and Entrepreneurs?

Both Sides of the Table

billion 2013 figure) have been massive financings at Honest Company ($70mm), JustFab ($85mm), ZipRecruiter ($63mm) and lord only knows how much SnapChat has actually accumulated. He built & IPOd Demand Media. In the last month alone (ie not captures in the $1.5 What Has Given Birth to This New Movement in LA? .

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What I Would Look for When Choosing a VC – Knowing What I Know Now?

Both Sides of the Table

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. I’ve been involved with SaaS companies with VCs who don’t understand demand generation, lead qualification, sales coverage ratios, sales forecasting or frankly when deals should be inside sales vs. outside sales.

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Who Should be on Your Startup Board?

Both Sides of the Table

seed and they are writing $1.25m of it you can expect them to require a board seat) The competitive landscape (If you have several sources of capital you can likely politely decline the board request or can grant them a seat but ask for it to be “common appointed” and those revokable if you need in the future).

Startup 236
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Should Startups Care About Profitability?

Both Sides of the Table

Or you know the other one — the one where Snapchat lost $2 billion in just one quarter. They hired a biz dev team to work on deals where their product could be embedded in other people’s products as a way to increase customer demand. If there was strong market demand for their product then this investment might pay off handsomely.

Startup 227
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Understanding the Underbelly of Online Marketing & Why You’ll Lose if You Don’t

Both Sides of the Table

While many tech startups do this intuitively (say, SnapChat thinking it would be much better if our photos out partying disappeared) it still happens. You might write a piece now and then that catches fire but there is nothing repeatable that would be useful for a business. Simply write a great book?

Marketing 379
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What Most People Don’t Understand About How Startup Companies are Valued

Both Sides of the Table

Brad was openly writing about this and it felt like he was giving the VC playbook away for free! We write about $40 million of first-checks into new deals / year and about $40 million of follow-on investments. The Laws of Supply & Demand. The most basic chart of microeconomics is a supply & demand curve.

Startup 150
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The Case For & Against Cryptocurrencies (for those tired of all the noise)

Both Sides of the Table

In more than a decade of writing about the Internet and tech-enabled businesses I’ve learned that mobs don’t do nuance well. Our social graphs are locked in Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. The reality is that cryptocurrencies can be both and can be liberating and corrupting at the same time. What I can tell you from my vantage point?

Course 280