Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series. Yesterday I had lunch with a really interesting and capable serial entrepreneur who is raising his A round. So I thought I’d try to lay out a framework for how you should think about it as many you will inevitably be faced with this experience.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Let’s set up a framework. In a world where the economy only heads in one direction (read: 2009-2014) most investors & entrepreneurs forget to pay attention to gross burn. A Framework to Guide You: So putting it all together, you should always be mindful of your personal circumstances and market conditions.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2022

The bad news is that it’s still a jungle fight for survival for entrepreneurs of all ages and demographics, with over 80 percent not having access to bank loans or venture capital. The best entrepreneurs work on making better time management a top objective. Talent – Every startup needs talents to give the company value.

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers. In many of them I get asked similar questions, including the inevitable “what makes a great entrepreneur?” Tesla is not. It's a great talk.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

When this first ran on TechCrunch I got the greatest comment in the world that I had to repeat here, “VC’s are like martinis: the first is good, the second one great, and the third is a headache.&# I understand the appeal of having many VC firms on your cap table. I love that. And it’s kind of true.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

I hope I straddled people’s points of view well enough not to have offended anybody while adding a framework for how I think about the service. Babak Nivi is one of the most understated, helpful & important people on the entrepreneur / startup scene in NorCal. But it +is+ an anti-entrepreneur stance.&#

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2019

The bad news is that it’s still a jungle fight for survival for entrepreneurs of all ages and demographics, with over 80 percent not having access to bank loans or venture capital. The best entrepreneurs work on making better time management a top objective. Talent – Every startup needs talents to give the company value.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2010

And that’s how I view VC today. If you’re not engaging your VC this way you’re losing out. You should be presenting data to your VCs and framing the decisions that you’re trying to make into cogent frameworks that will allow a group of experienced people to help you with decision making.

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Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

Coming up with a new idea, and launching your startup is one thing, three entrepreneurs do this every second. The New York Times has also drawn attention to this startup bubble, explaining that, after the dizzying heights of 2015, gaining VC and scaling is going to be much harder this year. A business needs a solid foundation. “My

Entrepreneur 40

Entrepreneur Startup Framework Ideas 40

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 3, 2015

It spoke to me because it so resonates with my nearly daily advice to entrepreneurs and VCs alike. I am often asked how we make decisions on investments at Upfront Ventures. Every VC firm works differently but when asked about our process I always reply the same way, We’re a “high conviction” shop.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 28, 2010

McKinsey had their “ 7S framework &# and BCG had the “ BCG Matrix &# with cash cows, dogs, stars and question marks. I mean Porter’s Five forces is a useful framework but it’s basically microeconomics with a pretty wrapper. I found that most VC’s never gave me any feedback when I was pitching.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2017

My goal is to lay out a basic framework for anybody unsure whom to listen to as a way of helping you think about a way to orient your own views. But I also believe that the backlash that will happen against ICO fraud will likely burn some people to future participation until and unless there are some frameworks for oversight of the market.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

I thought I’d try to offer a framework for thinking about the topic. This conversation seems to come up very frequently these days both with portfolio companies and with entrepreneurs just looking for mentorship. So here’s my framework. Are you in the “lean&# phase? So if you can take 27% dilution for $1.5

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

As I have pointed out in previous posts , 91% of VCs surveyed believe prices are declining (30% believe substantially) and 77% believe that funding will take longer than it has in the past. The earlier the round, the less capital you need and the more reasonable your valuation the less time that is needed generally to raise capital.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 9, 2013

I believe that market conditions drive innovation as much as great entrepreneurs do. I broke down the types of CC companies into 5 main buckets today to give a framework to think about your startup if you’re entering this space: 1. Venture capital will be easy and then hard. These types of trends are unsustainable.

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Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 1, 2014

The very mention of the word fundraising can illicit some powerful emotions among entrepreneurs. On one end, entrepreneurs who have (at minimum) built something customers love and are willing to pay for, and the other hand, investors who are looking for the very companies who fit that profile. 116,105,000. Where SeedInvest Sprouted.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

They often are very good at getting information out of people, helping create a framework for making decisions and pushing for support amongst the organization from those that back the decision and those that do not. These are the skills I look for in entrepreneurs and leaders. I wasn’t sure whether he was an entrepreneur.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

It's quite a different framework from an Airbnb or HomeAway. I was just starting out in mobile app development, and a friend of mine was just starting out as a VC at Greycroft. It gives our hosts an opportunity to not live by a calendar. How did the idea come about for Overnight? From there, I was working at a starrtup here.

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socalTECH

APRIL 24, 2015

We caught up with serial entrepreneur Derrick Oien , who is CEO of the company, to learn more. Why aren't venture capitalists interested in sports? Derrick Oien: I have a couple of quotes from VCs, and my favorite one is that, for venture capital, sports is a $0 billion dollar industry. I was at MP3.com,

Media 100

Media Startup Avalon Social Media 100

socalTECH

APRIL 24, 2015

We caught up with serial entrepreneur Derrick Oien , who is CEO of the company, to learn more. Why aren't venture capitalists interested in sports? Derrick Oien: I have a couple of quotes from VCs, and my favorite one is that, for venture capital, sports is a $0 billion dollar industry. I was at MP3.com,

Media 100

Media Startup Avalon Social Media 100

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 2, 2012

He recently produced the Silicon Beach Fest along with Kevin Winston of Digital LA , and his mobile ad optimization and re-engagement company PageWoo came out of the 1st graduating class for the new Los Angeles accelerator Start Engine (developed by serial entrepreneur of Activision fame, Howard Marks). The framework in L.A.

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