Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

socalTECH

AUGUST 18, 2010

For today's Insights and Opinions section, where we feature insights and analysis from the local technology community, we have an article from Jeff Cohn , an entrepreneur and veteran of the angel and VC investment community here in Southern California. Read the rest of Jeff's post on on angel and venture capital shareholder liquidity.

Venture Capital 145

Venture Capital Capital Tech Coast Angels Angel 145

socalTECH

AUGUST 19, 2011

In our Insights and Opinions section this Friday morning, Frank Peters , angel investor and podcaster at the Frank Peters Show , shares his opinions on startups making Google their exit strategy: It's the exit strategy for too many entrepreneurs: "Google's a target exit partner." Meanwhile entrepreneurs dream.

Google 157

Google Statistics Venture Capital Entrepreneur 157

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures).

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Google’s investment in Zynga. Don’t.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

Had a great chat with Jim Armstrong who is a General Partner at Clearstone Venture Partners today on TWiVC. It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. Investors: Google Ventures.

Clearstone 236

Clearstone Venture Capital ReachLocal Google 236

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

entrepreneur Wil Schroter (I am an angel investor in Affordit). Investors: Foundry (Ryan McIntyre) (lead), new angel investors: Scott Petry (Postini founder), Matt Mullenwag (WordPress), and existing investors: Highway 12 Ventures, TechStars (David Cohen), SoftTech VC (Jeff Clavier), FF Angel (Dave McClure).

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

The same should be true of an entrepreneur who is attempting to secure money from sophisticated investors. The steps outlined below represent an ideal approach to raising capital from sophisticated investors. You might be at Step 2 with one VC and Step 3 with another. Even the most jaded VC cannot resist authentic flattery.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Capital Research Customer 236

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

One of things I’ve loved the most about doing now 11 weeks of This Week in VC is a chance to have an hour-long recorded conversation with investors. One of the most difficult things to do as a first time entrepreneur is to get to know the investors you might be working with if you accept money. So how did Mike get into VC?

Venture Capital 230

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Fandango 230

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? I’m enjoying being a VC. I thought I’d talk a bit about the differences I’ve experienced between being an entrepreneur & a VC – you know, from “both sides of the table.&#.

Entrepreneur 384

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Ideas 384

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

We have significant VC commitments (listed below) – every entering company will get $50,000 in funding, mentorship from top VCs and successful entrepreneurs plus free office space. Of these 19 have received funding (10 have received significant amounts of VC funding) and 5 have been acquired (2 for more than $30 million).

Venture Capital 287

Venture Capital Funding Startup GRP Partners 287

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. “Why do founders want to take the VCs’ money? .” After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital!

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - First Principles.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

By Dave Lavinsky, President and Co-Founder of Growthink At one point or another, most entrepreneurs find themselves in a place where they could use money. These entrepreneurs often dream about how much they could accomplish if they had millions in the bank. And as they sit and dream, most entrepreneurs think about venture capitalists.

Venture Capital 93

Venture Capital Capital Invest Entrepreneur 93

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She hasn’t raised any venture capital. She actually IS the prototypical entrepreneur. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. But Tracy did what entrepreneurs do. More on that later. That may soon change.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

socalTECH

JUNE 14, 2011

Ryan gives seven new Do's and Don'ts for entrepreneurs. Ever since my post on Los Angeles venture capital, I’ve been getting a lot of email and phone inquiries from local entrepreneurs seeking advice. Typically the entrepreneurs that reach out want to meet in person and ask for advice. 7 DO’s: 1.

Entrepreneur 145

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Los Angeles Google 145

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 when I visit LPs (the people who invest in VCs) all across the country, “Yeah, I haven’t been out there for a few years but I keep hearing that something is going on there.” Yes, Google won.

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Los Angeles-based TenOnTen Ventures, the venture capital investment fund run by David Waxman, Gil Elbaz, and Minnie Ingersoll, has kicked off efforts to raise a third fund, TenOneTen Ventures III, with a goal of raising $60M in the fund, per recent regulatory filings by the firm.

Funding 113

Funding Google Venture Capital Los Angeles 113

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. But VC is like congress. “I don’t know the exact math, but I hear it again and again: the top 2% of firms generate 98% of the returns in venture capital.”

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. For entrepreneurs who want to learn about how to work with investment banks, how to position yourself to be acquired and what the IPO markets look like this is the episode to watch. Acquired by Google for $700mm in cash.

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Mission Ventures Capital Help 242

socalTECH

JULY 7, 2010

One complaint we sometimes hear from venture capitalists visiting Southern California for the first time, is the difficulty of finding experienced entrepreneurs and executives. Elbaz sold Applied Semantics to Google in 2003, for pre-IPO stock, reaping first round investors more than a 100x return on their investment.

Southern California 228

Southern California Entrepreneur SoCal Mahalo 228

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

Contrast that with a VC conversation I had. In case you don’t know – as VCs we have have 2 sets of customers: LPs (limited partners) who invest money in our funds and entrepreneurs (who we in turn give money to and help support them in building businesses we hope will be valuable). If not, somebody else will.

Customer 341

Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 29, 2014

One of the hardest things for most entrepreneurs to know is how hard to push in situations where people tell you “no.” ” But then again most entrepreneurs fail. I’d say less than 20% of of entrepreneurs fit into that bucket. I called it “the worst startup advice I had ever heard somebody give.”

Venture Capital 389

Venture Capital Email Startup Conference 389

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 20, 2017

The funding was led by Rincon Venture Partners, Wavemaker Partners, Frontier Venture Capital, and Apex Ventures. The startup, led by serial entrepreneur Ryan Born, said it also acquired a range of assets from Dart Music. in a seed financing round, according to the company.

Startup 177

Startup Venture Capital Content Google 177

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

On why you should be an entrepreneur, “A lot of people do what they have to do. So it was my great pleasure to host Chamillionaire on This Week in VC this week talking marketing, entrepreneurship, old media and, of course, music. Raising Capital – The VC equivalent for musicians is getting signed by a major label.

Entrepreneur 356

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Email 356

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. It’s always such a pleasure for me to spend time with Farb because he has all of the enthusiasm and energy you love to see in entrepreneurs. Estimated 15mm downloads to date.

Venture Capital 214

Venture Capital Startup Design S3 214

socalTECH

AUGUST 13, 2014

Los Angeles-based venture capital investor TenOneTen Ventures , which is run by David Waxman and Gil Elbaz, is looking to raise a $25M fund, according to a regulatory filing from the company this week. Elbaz was founder of Applied Semantics (acquired by Google), and is currently full time CEO at Factual. READ MORE>>.

Funding 164

Funding Venture Capital Google Los Angeles 164

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

VCs strangely never seem to weigh in on other VC funds. As an entrepreneur I never really knew what to make of VC return data. Here’s what I know: Most entrepreneurs I know would love to work with A16Z. Upfront Ventures has partnered with Andreessen Horowitz on several deals. Can that really work?”

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Invest Funding Competition 264

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

VC's love to talk about their successes. Yet most VC's bury their failures under six feet of denial. In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. In retrospect, our decision was both perfectly rational and completely lame. billion).

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

MBA’s are an easy target for entrepreneurs’ scorn. I too have taken shots at MBA’s, describing why they are not typically well suited for startup life in Why Entrepreneurs Hate (Most) MBAs. Ventures In Which An MBA Education Is A Plus. Situationally, MBA’s Can Be Effective Entrepreneurs. “When M.B.A.’s

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Allegis Startup Competition 113

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. I just completed an exercise where I went out to hire a new associate for my VC firm, GRP Partners. I had to laugh a bit reading it. MBA fine, but not required.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 12, 2010

In the VC & Private Equity world there’s a small number, too, with one of the most respected being PEHub. I always wanted to have Dan on This Week in VC with Dan Primack ( to see video click link ) because he’s blunt, honest, opinionated and well informed. Question: Some people are saying traditional VC is dead.

Venture Capital 232

Venture Capital Slides Seed Funding Google 232

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I don’t think most VC’s do. But in most situations a VC will want to be able to judge how you perform over time. I then covered Street Smarts.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Startup Google Yammer 291

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. But a couple of people replied with responses of such lack of comprehension that I thought it was worth expanding on for first-time entrepreneurs. And speaking of coaching, if you haven’t read Googled by Ken Auletta you should. VENTURE CAPITAL.

Startup 363

Startup Venture Capital Coach Press 363

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 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? I’m enjoying being a VC. I thought I’d talk a bit about the differences I’ve experienced between being an entrepreneur & a VC – you know, from “both sides of the table.&#.

Entrepreneur 176

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Ideas 176

socalTECH

JULY 26, 2017

TenOneTen Ventures , the Los Angeles venture capital firm founded by David Waxman and Gil Elbaz, is aiming to raise $50M in its second venture fund, according to a regulatory filing from the company filed this week. Elbaz previously founded Applied Semantics(acquired by Google), and Factual. READ MORE>>.

Funding 113

Funding Venture Capital Los Angeles Google 113