Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

There were many moments in each space when pioneers were funding startups and the press hadn’t written much about them and if you were a typical investor you were still funding the last trend while some VCs were trailblazing into new categories. As I like to say, “We need to fight. Let’s just make sure we do it fairly.”

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

Short summary of my posts: 1. There is a structural reason that VCs are investing at early stages, 2. I’ve done 4 seed investments in the past year and they are 100% referenceable. I’ve done 4 seed investments in the past year and they are 100% referenceable. million is “follow on&# seed investment.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Or, as always, summary notes available below. My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. “My Brad on blogging.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2017

Document the investment types you are willing to consider. The basic categories include equity, straight debt, convertible debt, services, and agreements for future equity. Generally, as a new business advisor, I recommend advance preparation of an executive summary, a pitch deck, short business plan, and lots of practice and passion.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Equity Capital Entrepreneur 88

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. In these cases, you need testimonials, usage details, and return-on-investment examples.

Product 95

Product Case Study Customer Custom 95

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Investors invest in the jockey, more than the horse. Both of these approaches are a waste of your time and theirs.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup Statistics 109

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. on the entrepreneur side of the table) when I raised at too high of a price. This is wrong.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

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. Clearstone currently invests out of a $200 million fund based in LA with offices in Menlo Park and in India. Some summary notes are below.

Clearstone 236

Clearstone Venture Capital ReachLocal Google 236

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2018

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Investors invest in the jockey, more than the horse. Both of these approaches are a waste of your time and theirs.

Funding 62

Funding Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup 62

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

We have many seasoned entrepreneurs who have built successful companies here and made a lot of money for investors and themselves. LA generally doesn’t have an appetite for this kind of investment at early stages. The whole category of “sponsored search&# came from a successful LA company, Overture. (my

Company 290

Company Companies Technology Startup 290

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

I shifted my thinking a few years ago after I read Tim Ferris’s book The Four Hour Workweek (link is to a short summary I wrote). I do what I wish all entrepreneurs would do. I try to bucket my tasks into major categories and spend some time doing each of them. It was a young, first-time entrepreneur who wanted to meet.

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

” I mention journalists here because they perpetuate the myth that focusing on profits is ALWAYS the right answer and then I hear many entrepreneurs (and certainly many “normals”) repeating the same mantra. Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

category E visa for investors as a prime example of the recent troubles. or purely invest in established U.S. nationals, making it difficult for investing founders to reach requirements, as well an application checklist with no set amount. Attracting business investment. Take the U.S.

Technical Review 77

Technical Review Startup Offshore Entrepreneur 77

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

LA not only produced the obvious – MySpace – but also created the whole category of sponsored search (Overture), AdSense (Applied Semantics), Local Search (City Search), comparison shopping (PriceGrabber, Shopzilla) and lead generation (LowerMyBills). Much of this was highlighted at Twiistup.

Twiistup 228

Twiistup SoCal Southern California Yammer 228

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. I would mostly lump me in that category. I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. Use something like, “I noticed you invested in a couple of companies in the x,y,z space.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. There are a lot of things I think entrepreneurs should care about when raising from a VC: How big or small their fund is? I could go on for a long time.

Entrepreneur 150

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Invest Funding 150

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

The Venture Value Scorecard is a one-page summary of your company’s achievements and assets: the factors that contribute to the value of your organization. Items that paint a big picture include revenue by major product area, cost of goods, and operating expenses by category. Detail isn’t important; tracking your progress is.

.Net 89

.Net Metrics Competition Template 89

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

When I described to people why I initially invested my calls went something like this, “He’s taken kicks to the face for nearly 2 years and is still standing. Jody didn’t exactly have an easy time fund raising because he’s not one of the prototypical Silicon Valley funded entrepreneurs. I love the concept.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

If you don’t want to read that post, the summary is: Open source computing drove computing costs down 90%, which spurred innovation in technology. Some have moved into later stage investments in an effort to “put logos on their websites.&# Surprisinly, this strategy works well with many entrepreneurs. .&#

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Capital Software Startup 296

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Summary notes, as always, provide below. He invented the category of sponsored search. At the time when you did a search on Lycos, Alta Vista or similar for a category such as Cars you ended up getting 9 spam results and 1 proper website to meet your needs. Too many entrepreneurs focus on dilution. Overture (Goto.com).

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2013

Yet every investor has his own “rules of thumb” on what makes a specific startup too high a risk for his investment taste. Of course, if you intend to fund the business yourself, or have a rich uncle, external investment funding concerns are not a problem. Historically high failure rate category. Operations in another country.

Startup 109

Startup Summary Software Review Sites 109

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2011

Yet every investor has his own “rules of thumb” on what makes a specific startup too high a risk for his investment taste. Of course, if you intend to fund the business yourself, or have a rich uncle, external investment funding concerns are not a problem. Historically high failure rate category. Operations in another country.

Startup 97

Startup Summary Software Review Sites 97

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Yet every investor has his own “rules of thumb” on what makes a specific startup too high a risk for his investment taste. Of course, if you intend to fund the business yourself, or have a rich uncle, external investment funding concerns are not a problem. Historically high failure rate category. Operations in another country.

Startup 89

Startup Summary Sites Invest 89

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2015

Every entrepreneur should do the same due diligence on a potential investor that smart investors do on their startups. Here is a summary of some key investor stereotypes that generally need to be avoided: Investment sharks. Many great real-estate people and doctors fall into this category. Legal eagle investors.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Coach Invest Sample 108