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Playing the Long Game in Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

This “overnight success” was first financed in 2004. Entrada Ventures? —?that He writes “Half of all venture funds outperform the stock market which is the benchmark most institutions measure VC funds against.” This is true in consumer but it’s also true in enterprise software.

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This Week in VC with @VCMike Hirshland of Polaris Ventures

Both Sides of the Table

I had an hour to interview Mike Hirshland of Polaris Ventures. This lasted from about 2001-2004. Since then Mike his built his career by investing in early-stage companies (seed or series A), which is remarkable given that Polaris Ventures is a $1 billion fund. Venture Financings we Discussed. Competitors: Google.

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Because the Domain Makes it Really Real

This is going to be BIG.

It''s kind of a funny answer to "When did you start Brooklyn Bridge Ventures?". So when did I really start Brooklyn Bridge Ventures? I got my first job in venture--at GM--in February 2001. I tried to write a book for college kids in 2002-2003, couldn''t get it published, so I started blogging in February of 2004.

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The Coming Zombie Startup Apocalypse

This is going to be BIG.

Would you be surprised to know that almost half of the dot com companies founded when the boom started in 1996 were still around in 2004--four years after the peak of the NASDAQ? Because most internet business concepts were not capable of productively employing tens of millions of dollars of venture capital does not mean they were bad ideas."

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How the New York City innovation community can still lose (and what you can do about it)

This is going to be BIG.

But I am also someone who is very colored by my past experience of seeing the venture implosion after the first bubble and walking through the fundraising tumbleweed of late 2008. Here's how you can prevent this NYC renaisannce from being a forest fire: Fail fast.

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Congrats to Backupify! A Great Exit Story for the First Company I Ever Backed

This is going to be BIG.

I started reading a great blog called Business Pundit in 2004. Fundraising for the Series A looked like it was going to be difficult--and that''s when Rich Levendov from Avalon Ventures stepped in. Venture Capital & Technology' It was written by a guy about my age down in Louisville, Kentucky.

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This Week in VC – Scott Painter, CEO of Zag & TrueCar

Both Sides of the Table

Current round: $20.0mm Series-B led by Andreesen Horowitz, with USV and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. led by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital, with Larry Braitman. Incubated by Clearstone Ventures in 2008. Current round: $7.0mm Series-B led by MK Capital, withClearstone Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures.

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