Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. Traditional software vs. SaaS. To be clear – I’m not saying huge successes make a VC less likely to be helpful to you – I’m just saying it’s not a guaranteed predictor. Most VCs are book smart.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

We discussed why in Q4 you will see large renegotiations of SaaS contracts and increased churn rates. There are large sums of money to be invested and if investors can get comfortable with “downside protections” they’ll still write checks. If you’re a clear “market winner” like Stripe, Robinhood or Airbnb.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Writing 263

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 11, 2013

You’ve got some friends interested in helping out and you think you can make this work. I’m largely talking about whether to use an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and to some extent, how much to rely on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers or write your own application components.

SaaS 90

SaaS Framework Resource Google 90

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

Only naive people believe that but for inexperienced entrepreneurs you can be fooled into the narrative by the press who sometimes write stories without the actual data. If you want to understand the power of how they’re built inbound call management into a SaaS category where they’re the market leader watch this one minute video.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. Some of the products I’ve helped validate and launch include GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting and AppFolio. Semick: They are. It’s chaotic.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

As a VC with scores of startups in our portfolio we have ringside seats to many, many fund raising processes plus I had to raise money across about 5 different rounds of capital as an entrepreneur so I’ve developed some thought on the process that I hope can be helpful to some of you before you start. Let me give you an example.

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

I follow Jason Lemkin closely (he’s a long-time friend) and he speaks frequently and passionately about SaaS businesses having built a successful one himself. I write this because I know how difficult it can be to find a potential investor and to decide with whom you’d like to try to work. Startup Advice'

Venture Capital 373

Venture Capital Startup Course Entrepreneur 373

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

So part of playing an effective coach is helping the team to see the answer for themselves. In stead of just writing operating and funding advice Fred also talks about industries. When I write about topics that are relevant suddenly anybody with a startup solution in that field will approach us. This works brilliantly.”

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Writing Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList. From there Rob decided to make a small investment.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

socalTECH

MAY 19, 2017

Venice Beach-based Signal Sciences (www.signalsciences.com) has created sofdtware designed for those application developers to help protect those web applications. We decided we'd take this solution out, and help solve that same pain for a broad group of people. We want people to hear about us and our product, and how we can help them.

Web 138

Web Startup Southern California Software 138

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2016

As an entrepreneur, there is so much competition for so few dollars, so having a finance background and also having done something entrepreneurial really helps me provide balance to the show. Lots of these guys come on the show, already have a niche market, but need some help to step it up to the next level.

Startup 100

Startup Entrepreneur Invest Competition 100

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

The mistake entrepreneurs make is either writing a lengthy email (everybody has too much email so it will get skimmed / not digested) or not having a deck which means the VC can’t quickly determine his or her fit as a potential investor. The key is WHAT you send.

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. I asked him if I could join his practice as the guy who could help him bridge technology & business. I was a guy who had built 2 SaaS companies and had sold to and worked for Salesforce.com.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

The firm has created a tool which uses software and semantic search to help in the whole process of curating content. We're a content curation platform, software-as-a-service for content, and we are focused on helping companies engage their customer more directly using content. It's all about what is happening on the realtime web.

Web 237

Web Newsletter Content Startup 237

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

We’ve had just one market since then and it could confuse one into thinking: every deal finds downstream investors, every company good or bad finds a home, you know anything at all about brazil, india, china or even saas sales, ecommerce or analytics (you know all these in a bull market). why do I write p.s.’s sometimes?

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

socalTECH

JUNE 30, 2009

I am someone who likes to interact with my Representatives and Senators, by way of writing letters, emailing, and what not. When I was listening, I made a point to try to do that, but when I did, I found I had to go to twenty sites to find the information I needed--whether that was to write a letter, send an email, or whatever.

Startup 100

Startup Writing Southern California Email 100

Tech.Co

MARCH 1, 2018

That’s why Canecto developed a cutting-edge, AI framework designed to be a web analytics assistant and help provide owners relevant insights around their customer base and learn how visitors interact with their content. InSpirAVE is helping people “save for what matters,” and reduce impulsive spending. Culpability (Atlanta, GA).

Startup 79

Startup Mentor Platform Help 79

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

The Amplify partners are dedicated to helping their entrepreneurs build the best companies possible and they throw themselves into it with great passion. We heard how Jeff transitioned from a start-up founder to an institutional investor when he helped found Amplify towards the end of 2011. Unwinding at an Amplify party.

Web Design 103

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 103

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

If you've taken a course, and need an application to do chemistry or math analysis, there's a store where you can write, share, sell, or buy those applications. After that, I was involved in a lot of angel investing, starting companies, and helping entrepreneurs to get going. They were looking for someone to help and guide them.

Education 124

Education Startup Course Tool 124

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. They are an open-source & SaaS provider of eCommerce solutions. Write out the topic and maybe even the blog title.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Those were the early days of SaaS and you might remember that even Salesforce.com has major outage problems. The process in and of itself was pretty lengthy and at some point I’d like to write about it in more detail. So we thought we were just managing our economic risks. To some extent this can be good and agile.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

socalTECH

JULY 13, 2009

As a result, I'm looking at a lot of software-as-a-service companies, and have run a number of SaaS companies. We'll even write a half a million check. The objective is to provide more mentoring for startups, and actually getting in and helping them. My own background, is I built and sold two software-as-a-service companies.

GRP Partners 157

GRP Partners Southern California Santa Barbara Rustic Canyon 157

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

Of course there is usually an inverse relationship between how senior the person is, how much time they have available and on the other side how much time they’ll spend helping you and getting involved in details. It’s not a requirement but it certainly helps when they’ve had to deal with the kinds of issues you will face.

Startup 187

Startup Writing Venture Capital Oracle 187

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

8 ) SocialStay is effectively a B-to-B, SaaS product that requires you to simultaneously speak to several audiences (hotels, travelers, travel sites, etc.). Write it down…. To what extent does all the “social” noise and excitement help or hurt your ability to tell SocialStay’s story to potential investors and partners?

Startup 233

Startup Design Mobile Social Network 233

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2013

This is hardly ideal and some simple changes could help management avoid both issues. Every time I think to write a post about this I figure the most recent board meeting I’ve attended will think it’s about them so I don’t bother. should we charge SaaS revenue, ad revenue or volumetric billing revenue?

Writing 337

Writing Venture Capital Help SaaS 337

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

I taught a somewhat crazy course about writing and deploying a scalable website in Ruby on Rails and deploying it in EC2. I was learning Ruby on Rails just ahead of the students and wrote the tools to help them manage the servers in EC2. It helps to think positive and focus on the awesome things that are indeed possible.

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

The Amplify partners are dedicated to helping their entrepreneurs build the best companies possible and they throw themselves into it with great passion. We heard how Jeff transitioned from a start-up founder to an institutional investor when he helped found Amplify towards the end of 2011. Unwinding at an Amplify party.

Web Design 40

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 40

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 31, 2011

2) Imagine you are writing a Wall Street Journal article in five years describing how ZipRecruter became the dominant online job site. I think what makes companies successful is not killer ideas (don’t get me wrong – they help), but killer execution at whatever model it is they have chosen to do.

MyLife 160

MyLife CitySearch Web Technical Review 160

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 31, 2011

2) Imagine you are writing a Wall Street Journal article in five years describing how ZipRecruter became the dominant online job site. I think what makes companies successful is not killer ideas (don’t get me wrong – they help), but killer execution at whatever model it is they have chosen to do.

MyLife 157

MyLife CitySearch Web Technical Review 157

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

Our goal is to produce a $10 billion+ winner and remain the market leader in this SaaS category of AI in Sales & Marketing. He writes “Half of all venture funds outperform the stock market which is the benchmark most institutions measure VC funds against.” He then went on the create an early-stage VC that I track closely?

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

. - Journalists don’t know enough about your company before the show, don’t have time for proper research, and you will be competing for their time afterward with 49+ other companies that want them to write about you. - The more she got to know more the more she called me for help with stories. It started socially.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

The truth is I have been thinking a lot about the topic, I just haven’t been writing about it. AWS helped lower the cost of starting a company by 90%. million to launch a SaaS software company and we took $2.5 I plan to write about this phenomenon soon. The infrastructure alone cost $2.5

Entrepreneur 341

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Blogging 341

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Getting his / her buy-in to your approach is important as they can help you steward the meeting in the right direction. tip: write it down when asked / parked).

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2015

I write about sales often both because it’s the lifeblood of any organization and because in my experience it is the area in which more startups are least experienced or inclined. I also write and talk about it frequently because raising capital is a part of sales and this is important for entrepreneurs to understand.

Sales 150

Sales Startup Venture Capital Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

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. I better roll up my sleeves and help my companies get funded.” But let me be even more clear.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2015

Never mind that Twitter in writing specifically asked us to build this re-syndication product with them and that every step of the way encouraged us to build out the service. We did make money helping customers process Twitter data. These are just some quick examples to help you understand the differences. Just how much?

Platform 150

Platform Course Customer Custom 150

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

SaaS 101: 7 Simple Lessons From Inside HubSpot - OnStartups , July 19, 2010 It’s been a little over 4 years since I officially launched my internet marketing software company , HubSpot. So, I’ve had about 4 years on the “inside” of a fast-growing, venture-backed B2B SaaS startup. I got a taste of that within my first weeks on the job.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217