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Want to Know How First Round Capital was Started?

Both Sides of the Table

I have sat on a board with Howard and have known him a few years. Infonautics went public in 1996 and Half.com was sold to eBay in 2000. These partners travel to a city and take ten minute pitches from the entrepreneurs. What are the most common mistakes in first pitch? What is ideal board structure? and Half.com.

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Why Founders are Wrong, Even When They're Right

This is going to be BIG.

Assuming they weren't unethical and they met your character standard, you went into a pitch with the goal of getting money from this person, and they didn't get there. It doesn't pay to look at it any other way--and I think too many founders focus on the investor as the problem versus their pitch or their company. Same with pitching.

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Should Founders Be Allowed to Take Money off the Table?

Both Sides of the Table

Coupled with my participating preferred from 1999 and 2000 I had more than $55 million of liquidation preferences. By then I was still on the board of my first company but it hadn’t yet sold (it ended up selling in 2007 to a publicly traded French company). In my first company I had to raise money in April 2001 or die.

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The Yo-Yo Life of a Tech Entrepreneur – A Cautionary Tale

Both Sides of the Table

We raised a seed round of capital in 1999 and our first venture capital round was the first week of March 2000 (e.g. But this was early 2000 and our US competitors had already closed rounds North of $45 million. We had a $40 million round lined up to close in the Autumn of 2000. Our first big institutional round was $16.5

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As Populist as it May Feel, 98% of VCs Aren’t Dumb

Both Sides of the Table

“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. In 2000 our industry had more than $100 billion in LP money. I pitch a lot of LPs. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. I rest my case.

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What the Past Can Tell Us About the Future of Social Networking

Both Sides of the Table

We had email, instant messaging, group calendars, discussion boards, etc. But AOL brought online services, email, chat and discussion boards to the masses and thus educated a generation that paved the way for others. 18 months ago 25% of all pitches to me were ideas for how to build products around Twitter’s API.

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25 Lessons In 25 Years: Tips for Success from a Self-Made Beauty Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Take Resumes with a Grain of Salt—Hire for Attitude and Train for Skills Any company can offer the greatest product or service in the world, but it can only be executed by having the right people on board. For years I did my own PR, pitching my products and services to editors of magazines and producers of TV shows.