Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I believe these VC funds have suffered some amount of reputation fall out. Let me explain: 1.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Invest 265

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund. VC Financings: 1. I keep meaning to get him drunk to spill the stories.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Capital Rustic Canyon Mobile 270

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 21, 2009

On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). per year.

Venture Capital 241

Venture Capital Technical Review Southern California Company 241

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

Mostly it’s because your marketing campaigns suck. Or more directly – they are likely narcissistic resuscitations of your newest features or bragging points that nobody but your marketing team and your mom care about. I am a VC. They offer a point-of-view about their market. Final example.

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting. The “Triple Play&# of VC Presentations. I funded them 8 weeks later.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

Lots of discussion these days about the changes in the VC industry. The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

What you’ll see if you watch the video is an unscripted and unfiltered look into how Scott Kupor & I see some of the changes and challenges of the venture industry. The only point we didn’t seem totally aligned on was what we happening to the “middle of the VC market.” tl;dr version.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital SaaS Writing Funding 309

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2020

Many entrepreneurs are so enamored with their product vision that they believe their own hype, and are convinced that the market for their solution is so huge that no one will ask them for independent market research data. Conduct your own customized market research. Modern libraries are still worth a visit.

Marketing 157

Marketing Statistics Research Report 157

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Almost always the CEO plus members of his or her management team including tech, marketing, sales and/or product. So part of seeing you with a team is to get a read on team dynamics and believe me all VCs discuss the team dynamics after you leave as in. Here are some guidelines for you – particularly for VC pitch meetings.

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Venture Capital Slides Course Summary 377

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

The Valley has obsessed with a quick up-and-to-right momentum story because we were thought to live in “winner take most” markets. Of the first four investments I made as a VC in 2009, two have exited and two (Invoca & GumGum) still are independent and likely to produce $billion++ outcomes . Entrada Ventures? —?that

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2015

I began asking around who the likely investors were for such a market. At the time almost nobody had heard of the following funds: FirstRound Capital, TrueVentures, Floodgate and SoftTech. Some quick highlights include: The Role of a Seed Stage VC. Each VC raises money – say $90 million.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Invest Cloud Computing 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

The idea is simple enough: several female VC partners at top funds will hold 1-hour meetings with 40 promising female entrepreneurs looking to get advice on their business and pitch in a friendly, non-judgmental, safe environment. 8% of VC partnerships, for example). Now 33% of Supreme Court Justices are women (vs.

Venture Capital 256

Venture Capital Examples Screening Help 256

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

It is simply the most important way to proactively control your career development and how the market perceives you. It will affect your ability to get the right jobs and promotions as well as your ability to attract talent and capital. That was fine with me – the market is the market. That was the market.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Thus began my marketing campaign. Investment experience (5 years a VC at Battery Ventures). As I like to say (and as Kara humbly hates when I do so in front of others) … she has a much better resume to a venture capital partner than I do. Upfront Ventures VC Industry'

Venture Capital 408

Venture Capital Startup Outsource Development CitySearch 408

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

Since 2009 we’ve been in an unequivocal bull market. Venture capitalists have raised increasing amounts of money from their investors (LPs) every year. An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. Growth markets have a way of fooling us all.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” For example. Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves.” So I like that bit, too.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. Because market is such a broad topic, I’m restricting these lessons to PR marketing (as opposed SEO, SEM, product marketing, etc.). Also be careful about VCs. But once a VC has heard your idea he can’t “un-think&# it.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

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.

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Mission Ventures Capital Help 242

TechCrunch LA

MAY 25, 2019

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s most noteworthy venture deals, fundraises, M&A transactions and trends. Enter Seedlip , a non-alcoholic spirits company, for example. More Labs, for example, is backed with $8 million in VC funding.

Startup 223

Startup Venture Capital Newsletter Tips 223

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 9, 2013

Declining prices & margins in a small market is much less interesting. Example: More than 50% of all youth in Greece & Spain (34% in Italy) are unemployed and if you take “under-employment” it is even worse. I believe that market conditions drive innovation as much as great entrepreneurs do. But what else?

Marketing 361

Marketing Course Pricing Networking 361

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Social Proof in Action … Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital. Many of you have read or at least know the primary thesis of “ Crossing the Chasm &# the seminal book on marketing your products to mainstream consumers by Geoffrey Moore.

Marketing 294

Marketing Customer Custom Technical Review 294

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

She worked for 5 years as a VC at Battery Ventures and co-headed M&A at IAC working with Barry Diller. Venture capital is about backing the leaders of tomorrow who imagine the world as it should be and aren’t constrained by what it is today. He launched our scout program as an example.

Venture Capital 361

Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

We all know that funding markets have changed for startups. Generally speaking in venture capital financings the legal documents will specify that only “major investors” (a threshold set in the agreement – which can be $500,000 investor or more). Let me give you a real world example from this week.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Greycroft is an early-stage VC. Closing a VC fund in 2009/10 is a major achievement in and of itself. To be fair to Ben Horowitz – I think he thinks this as well. Time will tell.

Venture Capital 240

Venture Capital Startup Platform Technical Review 240

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

Do you imagine eventually raising VC and trying to build a faster growing company?” Venture capital isn’t right for many business but if you do want to raise from a VC at some point you need to understand that often investors care more about growth than profits. For example, look at the following graph.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

TechCrunch LA

JULY 2, 2020

When it comes to venture capital, Los Angeles is a city on the rise. In the past year, it’s seen one of the most profitable venture-backed exits of any tech ecosystem (with the $4 billion sale of Honey to PayPal) and investors are minting billion-dollar companies in the region at a torrid pace.

Los Angeles 277

Los Angeles Venture Capital Capital Invest 277

socalTECH

OCTOBER 9, 2019

There's a new opportunity in clean technology investments, according to venture capitalist Aaron Fyke , the head of a new, Pasadena-based venture capital investment fund, Thin Line Capital (www.thinlinecapital.com). To give you an example, with Austra, the round we invested in was $60M, and this wasn't atypical.

Invest 113

Invest Capital Venture Capital Idealab 113

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

Many entrepreneurs are so enamored with their product vision that they believe their own hype, and are convinced that the market for their solution is so huge that no one will ask them for independent market research data. Conduct your own customized market research. Modern libraries are still worth a visit.

Research 87

Research Marketing Statistics Report 87

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

As discussed in Why I Passed On Twilio , VC's love to talk about their successes, but seldom publicly acknowledge their mistakes. It is far more detrimental to one’s returns to make investments in companies which fail to return capital. Uber's development of its marketplace is a textbook example of how to do it right.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Email Invest Services 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Investors own 25%, the founders own 75%.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

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.” As you can see from the chart their data suggests there are about $25 billion of VC distributions per year in the US. Their data looks at tech VCs.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

There are no “overrides” – for example, businesses don’t thrive just because they offer the latest technology, or because everyone wants to be “green,” or because their goal is to reduce world hunger. The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, or an inadequate revenue model. Target market.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 7, 2007

I've been reading or hearing quite a bit about how startups these days don't take nearly as much capital to create as they used to. If that's actually true, then it creates New Rules Of Technology VC. Angel networks act like low-end VCs and expect a company with a product and a somewhat proven market opportunity.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Incubator Examples 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 6, 2023

Many entrepreneurs are so enamored with their product vision that they believe their own hype and are convinced that the market for their solution is so huge that no one will ask them for independent market research data. Conduct your own customized market research. Modern libraries are still worth a visit.

Statistics 120

Statistics Research Report Newsletter 120

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 29, 2014

I once went to a startup event where a VC told the audience that if a VC doesn’t respond to your email to move on to the next VC – that VC is clearly not interested. Do you think the SVP of Marketing from Coca Cola is going to respond to your every email? But how do you get past gate keepers?

Venture Capital 389

Venture Capital Email Startup Conference 389

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

Shots on Goal Being great as a startup technology investor of course requires a lot of things to come together: You need to have strong insights into where technology markets are heading and where value in the future will be created and sustained You need be perfect with your market timing. I’ve definitely been wrong on market value.

Funding 294

Funding Startup Writing Invest 294