Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. If an accelerator is writing you they’re also writing 25 other VCs.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

SoCal Tech Calendar

MARCH 30, 2017

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 -- FundingPost Los Angeles VC and Angel Investor Conference. Join us for this intimate VC and Angel Investor Conference. FundingPost has hosted 300+ sold-out venture events in 23 cities over the past 16 years. Interested in meeting early-stage accredited investors in LA?

Los Angeles 100

Los Angeles Venture Capital Conference Angel 100

SoCal Tech Calendar

MARCH 29, 2017

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 -- FundingPost Orange County VC and Angel Investor Conference. Join us for this intimate VC and Angel Investor Conference. FundingPost has hosted 300+ sold-out venture events in 23 cities over the past 16 years. Interested in meeting early-stage accredited investors in Orange County?

Orange County 100

Orange County Venture Capital Conference Angel 100

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

In writing anything positive about any of the companies I’m not suggesting that it means that I prefer them to any of their competitors. Also, some of the deals I write about I have actually seen as part of their fund raising process. Investors: Union Square (lead), Spark Capital (lead). Really!).

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# And the VC job has plenty of admin and minutiae.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. In case VC’s haven’t figured this out yet, shit rolls downhill. No prizes for guessing which VCs I didn’t work with (and still won’t).

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

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. No, the ideas aren’t conflicting. That notes only told part of the story.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

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. They do this because they have amazing skills at writing business plans. They know the VCs so they know what interests them. And non-conventional ideas.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

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 . The abundance of late-stage capital is good for us all. My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca. Entrada Ventures? —?that Maker Studios?—?sold

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

As noted in Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Pitch Their Ideas To Venture Capitalists , most sophisticated investors place their bets on people rather than opportunities. Too Techie - Tone down emphasis on the technology underlying your venture; an interested investor will perform tech diligence at the appropriate time. Capitalization.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. 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.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2010

In today’s post I want to talk about the concept of a VC flightpath. This is my description of a VC process, not one I’ve heard from other VCs so don’t expect it to be accepted nomenclature. I have no idea why, but that’s always how it always felt to me when I was an entrepreneur raising money.

Venture Capital 275

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Ideas 275

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

Every tech or major news journal in the country is preparing to write their Snap, Inc (creators of Snapchat, Spectacles, etc) stories and many of them seem to want a “How does it feel to have missed this investment story.” I hear tons of ideas for early-stage apps. What if text messages disappeared? Mostly kidding. I should have.

Snapchat 214

Snapchat Invest Technical Review Dollar Shave Club 214

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2023

Every entrepreneur needs help and support along the way, from developing the initial idea, to selling off the successful business (exit strategy). Let’s take a look here some similar stages from a support perspective: Idea stage. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it.

Startup 122

Startup Funding Organization Incubator 122

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” My favorite new VC blogger, Hunter Walk, weighed in with some thoughtful comments about how Syndicates might actually pit, “ angel vs. angel.” Bowery Capital).

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 8, 2011

I began our discussion by asking Brad what motivated him to co-author Venture Deals , rather than continuing to share venture capitalists’ secrets via his Ask The VC blog. Writing a book is very different from writing a blog. One, I wanted to know what it was like to write a book. There are several.

Venture Capital 224

Venture Capital Writing Entrepreneur Blogging 224

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2014

Sometimes those motives are positive (they really want the chance to work with you, they think you have unique skills) and sometimes they are less positive (their first-tier of “go to” referrals passed on the deal, they don’t want to write another check themselves, etc.). I never thought of it that way.”

Venture Capital 337

Venture Capital Invest Ideas Entrepreneur 337

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. I just want to figure out what a fair valuation is.&# I figured all the VC’s talked so we should. This starts with understanding how VCs and entrepreneurs often see valuation differently.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Tech.Co

JANUARY 28, 2016

FundingPost has hosted 300+ sold-out venture events in 23 cities over the past 14 years. At the LA Angel Investor Roundtable, the panel of investors will focus on pitching to early-stage investors, and what it really takes to get them to write you a check! There will be plenty of time for networking with the Investor panelists!

Los Angeles 70

Los Angeles Angel Venture Capital Writing 70

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Greathouse: How did you come up with the idea for ProductPlan? Semick: It wasn’t our first idea. We spent a lot of time talking about what type of company we wanted to create, how many employees we’d eventually have, whether we would take funding, our lifestyle, and a dozen other things that had nothing to do with writing software.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

We also are dependent on money, advice and support of many of our friends & colleagues in the venture industry who co-invest with us in nearly every deal we do. Every year we try to write up and publish our thoughts publicly both to help other investors & entrepreneurs and also to test our thoughts in the public market of ideas.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Marketing Writing 150

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. When should a VC invest? Start writing down predictions about people, companies, and markets. Between TechCrunch today and my former roles in venture capital, I’ve had the opportunity to practice timing a lot.

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2020

Every entrepreneur needs help and support along the way, from developing the initial idea, to selling off the successful business (exit strategy). Let’s take a look here some similar stages from a support perspective: Idea stage. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it.

Resource 171

Resource Startup Organization Incubator 171

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. Remind me why I love you?

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2011

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Chris Sacca fly by that prompted me to want to write a blog post helping entrepreneurs understand why they should push back against VCs asking for “super pro-rata” rights. I’ll explain what they are and why you should avoid them if you can. A primer on “pro-rata” rights.

Entrepreneur 310

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Writing Invest 310

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Frankly, I think venture capital is that way, too. How do VCs break out of group think when they are shuttling from one board meeting to the next, from one conference to the other and talking with all the same people? How does the world in Los Angeles intersect differently with venture capital? go on, click it ).

Venture Capital 400

Venture Capital Conference Ideas Entrepreneur 400

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. Many businesses that pitch to me have White Elephant issues and I’d like to tell you how to deal with these when you’re raising venture capital. But the VC is thinking about the issue whether you address it or not. Deal with your White Elephants.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Startup Training Sales 264

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2016

Why would a VC do that? I LOVE writing. But writing takes more time and some days I don’t have that. Today we have all of my past videos with categories so you can more easily explore topics like: fund raising, HR, VC advice, negotiations, sales, marketing, etc. It’s a quick, easy way to share advice to masses of people.

Snapchat 200

Snapchat Blogging Venture Capital Writing 200

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

I’ve been writing quite a bit about crypto lately, and this week I dug into a particularly interesting facet of the industry called DAOs. ” my colleague Aisha notes. Crypto startups are making it easier to build crypto clubs. Image Credits: Busakorn Pongparnit (opens in a new window) / Getty Images. added things.

Marketing 246

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2014

This blog started from a series of conversations I found myself having over and over again with founders and eventually decided I should just start writing them.It The desire to be better than anybody else in one’s field. Last week’s obsession was about obsession itself. Zuckerberg. Larry / Sergey.

Competition 394

Competition Startup Writing Marketing 394

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. Back to regular writing this week so check back in. What did you do before VC and how did that lead you to VC? (1:00 How did you get into VC? (9:30 Thank you. (if

Capital 265

Capital Venture Capital Veoh Startup 265

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

We talk a lot about his schooling, his early jobs as a developer and then as a VC and we talk about his decision to spend winters in Los Angeles. Fred is generous with his time and advice and I hope has shaped a generation of VCs for the better. You can’t time VC investing markets. VC investing is hard work.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Writing Blogging 150

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity? Another way to approach the gate keeper directly is with a strategic idea or extremely profitable suggestion that he or she can make their own, and enhance their standing within the company. But what power.

Ideas 120

Ideas Sales Competition Venture Capital 120

From the Venture Trenches

MARCH 27, 2013

Yet despite his ability to raise over $1 billion of private equity and to build an organization that is worth $5 billion as of this writing, Mason was shown the door. Filed under: Entrepreneurs , Founders , Fund Raising , Startup , Venture Capital , Wall Street Tagged: Anthem Venture Partners , Private equity , Ron Conway , Venture capital.

Venture Capital 45

Venture Capital Capital Anthem Startup 45

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

Having street smarts with no inspirational ability to build teams can yield a great small business but will be difficult to scale into a large VC-backed business. So we as VCs search for entrepreneurs/founders who have the whole package or as much of it as possible. In the book they profile how VC worked in the early days (60s / 70s).

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2020

Even if you passionately believe that your idea is a winner, it’s smart to remind friends of the historical facts with startups. Treat the transaction as you would expect to be treated by an angel investor or VC. That means writing down and signing the terms of the agreement, after making sure everyone understands them.

Funding 123

Funding Startup Equity Venture Capital 123

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

There has been much discussion about VCs doing seed funding in the past year. I’ve written about it myself (Is VC Seed Funding Dead?) and (Is There Really a Signaling Problem with VC Seed Funding?). There is a structural reason that VCs are investing at early stages, 2. Short summary of my posts: 1.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298