Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture.

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Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The typical VC process is as follows: They say there are three rules in property: Location, location, location. The surest sign a fund-raising process has stalled is when you aren’t getting follow-up meetings or hearing from the VC or hearing from friends that they got a phone call or email asking about you. Same with VC.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 5, 2019

Tuesday, June 11, 2019 -- San Diego FundingPost VC and Angel Investor PitchFest + Pitch Workshop. At this San Diego Event, we will be showcasing some of the newest early-stage venture funds and angel groups in the San Diego area! We're doing it again! All of the Investors will get your company description and contact info!

San Diego 100

San Diego Venture Capital Angel Summary 100

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As noted in Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Pitch Their Ideas To Venture Capitalists , most sophisticated investors place their bets on people rather than opportunities. Financials.

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Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 7, 2019

Thursday, June 13, 2019 -- Orange County FundingPost VC and Angel Investor PitchFest + Pitch Workshop. At this OC Event, we will be showcasing some of the newest early-stage venture funds and angel groups in the San Diego area! We're doing it again! All of the Investors will get your company description and contact info!

Orange County 100

Orange County Venture Capital Angel Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 26, 2013

Your executive summary is essentially the cover letter to your business plan: its goal is to get the reader to check out your business plan and, hopefully, to set up a meeting. Here’s how to write an executive summary with impact: 1. Sure you can get help, but the exercise of creating your executive summary is an important one.

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Summary Tips Startup Writing 76

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. I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. I funded them 8 weeks later.

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Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. If you haven’t read the other VC fund-raising posts I’ve done as part of this series you can find the whole outline and this first in the series here.]

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2016

GOAT just announced it raised $5 million in venture capital led by our friends at Matrix Partners. It’s a Chanukkah story where 18 months of venture capital funding ends up lasting more than 4 years and where against all odds the underdog succeeds. On the surface that sounds unremarkable — fundings happen daily.

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Venture Capital Summary Writing Funding 199

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

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should.

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Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. “This essay is dedicated to the great VC’s on my board who I am lucky to work with: Sameer Gandhi from Accel, Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed, and Kirsten Green from Forerunner. . Their data looks at tech VCs. Because they know him or her.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

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. TWIVC Summary – Richard de Silva. What did you do before VC and how did that lead you to VC? (1:00 Thank you. (if

Capital 265

Capital Venture Capital Veoh Startup 265

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 21, 2010

VC Pitch Decks. The great thing about the VC pitch deck is that you can have 30 slides. If a VC only read your deck that would be fine but we’re no different than recruiters – we get more paperwork than we can process. If I took the time to write less I would produce 50% of the content.

Slides 346

Slides Software Review Blogging Venture Capital 346

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Or if you’re a VC raising from LPs you have to list all of your deals, your investment value, your carrying value, your multiples, your IRRs, TVPIs, DPIs, etc along with net cashflows plus your previous LPAs. So what does a VC do when he or she isn’t ready to say “no” or perhaps might like to talk with you in a year but not now?

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Watch the 30-minute interview to hear why but summary notes below. In many ways I think general purpose writing & thinking skills are as valuable as math skills. Venture Capital. We spoke about the disruption of VC through crowd funding. New company in Boston with a model called “royalty capital.”

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

If you read this blog often you'll know that I'm a huge fan of First Round Capital. They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. First Round Capital receives about 2500 submissions each year.

Capital 284

Capital Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2017

of all Statistics are Made Up ” My summary is an example I use often: when I consumed reports from Goldman Sachs about the future predictions of mobile phone penetration for a report I was working on for a client I would call the analyst to ask how she calculated her data because I wanted to be sure of my conclusions.

Venture Capital 182

Venture Capital Statistics Writing Report 182

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Or, as always, summary notes available below. Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. But, in fact, I would rather have an executive summary than a pitch deck. was starting.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

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?). Short summary of my posts: 1. There is a structural reason that VCs are investing at early stages, 2.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I was saying that I was happy it was all out in the open because I felt at least everybody could now understand the issues & opportunities from the perspectives of angels, entrepreneurs and VCs. Let’s be clear: AngelList doesn’t scare a single VC I know. But it’s not cutting VCs out. It is additive.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2011

Of course I can’t write every press release for the company nor would I want to. VC Pitches. Having been an entrepreneur for near-on a decade and having pitched in 100 VC meetings I hated getting no feedback. In Summary. I then asked for editing rights to his Google Doc and I rewrote a version of it.

Press 337

Press Venture Capital Doc Summary 337

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

Since it’s already written (and since I promised not to republish on my blog other than a summary) if you’re interested please have a read over there. Summary notes and then I’ll extend: Should you blog? Now I’m a VC. Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This is a long post, so I put an executive summary here if you want to get the point without reading all the detail. If you plan to read the post you can skip the summary if you want. These are all creative processes.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 16, 2011

It’s easy to think that the wife of a well-known & successful VC ( Fred Wilson ) would have had an easy and storied life of wealth and privilege. That’s why I was so interested in having “ The Gotham Gal &# come on This Week in VC ( video link on YouTube , download iTunes, episode 15) ) and dispel those myths.

Startup 311

Startup Sales Venture Capital Entrepreneur 311

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2012

But the reality is that unfiltered intros just create work for the VC. But if you start the send multiple deals and if the quality of those deals is not super hight then you begin to erode the trust that the VC has in your judgment. Remember as a startup – the person who sends the intro to the VC matters a lot. In Summary.

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Email Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 359

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase. And because as a VC or as a CEO or senior exec you get presented to all the time we’re extra sensitive to it. 25% of VCs are expressives, like you. It’s in their personality type.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC. Quick caveats: having fewer investors (3-5) is better than many investors (10-15) and PLEASE make sure you hire a great lawyer who has experience in doing start-ups to avoid pitfalls that will make VC harder down the line. They might be as hard as raising VC.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

” It was meant both as a call to those writing angel checks into other people’s companies that they ought to think about putting that capital toward themselves either by becoming a startup founder or (and this was my real point) by taking an under-market salary in a company where they can learn the right skills to do it in the future.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

I interviewed Eric for an hour for - This Week in Venture Capital. Or if you’re pinched on time the summary is below and the time coding can help you watch a brief snippet on topics that interest you. 36:30 Eric: Social media is great for people with social capital. 41:00 Transitioning from software to writing.

Social Media 301

Social Media Startup Metrics Media 301

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

What is the True Sentiment of VCs? I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” But not a VC or Bill Gurley or myself would have spooked it 2 years ago.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. One of them is profitability.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

It’s a hard topic to write about because it’s almost an accepted norm that total transparency is good. ” Your VC friends have been egging you on. They told you, “Yeah, man, I’ll gladly write the first $250,000. The don’t understand VC liquidation preferences or multiple return expectations.

Startup 417

Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

I recommend that you start by writing down the attributes you would want people to think about when they think about your brand. Think about venture capital. Those that were around 30+ years ago never had to think about branding – there were hardly any other VCs. Not versus every other VC but versus many.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles Woodland Hills 304

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

And yes, VC’s, too. Negotiate directly with your VC or acquirer with lawyers present in the room. VCs : VCs are often on your side and usually act in an ethical manner. You can sometimes leverage your VC in a “bad cop&# negotiation with a buyer. What might the VC do against your interest?

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

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). You’re writing a freaking blog post! Can you please intro me to XYZ VC? I never get grumpy that people write. If you do randomly write me I have advice. I think so. [I

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 11, 2011

What follows is a summary which paraphrases Naval’s responses. 6) Naval, why does the startup world need AngelList and Venture Hacks? . “As Venture Hacks is educating entrepreneurs on the game theory of how to raise venture capital. We are productizing the raising of capital for startups. ”.

Startup 273

Startup Software Review Summary Technical Review 273