Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

One of things I’ve loved the most about doing now 11 weeks of This Week in VC is a chance to have an hour-long recorded conversation with investors. And in my interviews with many VCs I feel that people can watch these and get to know the VC’s as human beings a bit better. So how did Mike get into VC?

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. We spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about industry trends (in this order): The history and background of True Ventures, one of my favorite early-stage VC’s (and the one with whom Om is a venture partner). This is astounding and myopic in my view.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2016

I joined Upfront Ventures in 2007 and took over as co-Managing Partner in 2011 along with the founder, Yves Sisteron. From 2007-2012 I scoured LA constantly. In the end, if you’re not developing a deep bench of talented professionals who keep you on your toes, you’re bound to be disrupted. I tried to be at every event.

disruption 226

disruption VC communities ventures 226

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 21, 2009

They do around 7% of the total VC-backed deals in the US per year or just under 40 deals / year on average (present year excluded!). Where I add commentary from myself or my fellow VC colleagues from our discussion after Jamie left I’ll put in red. This time period is usually 10 years (although small extensions are common).

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 5, 2021

There has been this narrative about investing in VC funds that you have to get into the top quartile (25%) or possibly the top decile (10%) in order to generate good returns. I have heard that for as long as I have been in VC and probably have written it here a few times. As you can see, investing in VC funds can be very profitable.

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VC board investment investing 279

Revolution

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

At the time, restaurants and food tech were on the margins of most investors’ minds and there was skepticism around VC-backed food concepts. something that sounds obvious today but was rare circa 2007. But we believed in the founders, Jonathan Neman, Nicolas Jammet, and Nathaniel Ru, and their vision of a healthier way to eat.

investing 363

investing investment transportation disruption 363

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 5 million was always the classic definition of an A-round between the late nineties (crazy financings aside) and say 2007. . $5

VC 399

VC advice financing finance 399

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. What Did I Learn From the First VC Check I Ever Wrote?

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

2001–2007: THE BUILDING YEARS The dot com bubble had burst. Between 2006–2008 I sold both companies that I had started and became a VC. SEEING THINGS FROM THE VC SIDE OF THE TABLE While I was a VC in 2007 & 2008 those were dead years because the market again evaporated due the the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. The industry did that in 2007.

ventures 419

ventures VC capital SaaS 419

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 28, 2013

The biggest question I think VC''s face right now is whether or not, in the future, the best founders will look and act like the best founders of the past. YCombinator had a great run from 2007 through early 2009 investing at a time when there weren''t nearly as many seed funds and accelerators as there are now.

venture capital 410

venture capital VC ventures capital 410

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

I only say that because after years as a VC I can always tell when my peer group invested in something because “it seemed like it would make money” versus when they invested out of passion. On reflection of the role that I want to play as a VC it is clearly in the camp of passion. I’m a VC.

peer-to-peer 373

peer-to-peer VC pitching entrepreneurs 373

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start Up Advice &# but I’d really like to call this post, “VC Advice.&#. We exchanged ideas when I was an entrepreneur along side him in NorCal in 05-07 and my point-of-view on founder / VC relationships hasn’t shifted even 1% since I went to the dark side. You lose the dream.

founder 329

founder VC advice pitching 329

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2013

It’s why I talk about building VC relationships early – Lines, Not Dots. Fill your VC good will, build relationships, be helpful to them not just asking for things. When I joined GRP Partners in 2007 I was offered a role as a General Partner. “I’ve never been a VC before. Be helpful.

advice 407

advice VC networking entrepreneurs 407

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I believe the rise in angel investing is here to stay and the professionalization of this class (aka “super angels&# or “micro VC&# ) is a good thing for the VC industry and for entrepreneurs. It’s a non-fiction story of many of the players at the heart of the financial crisis that became exposed in 2007/08.

angel investing 306

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. The VC industry is segmenting – I have spoken about this many times before. The VC industry has different segments in it that have different fund sizes, different investment amounts and different risk / return expectations. It’s just not a VC investment.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

The importance of the conference is that it assembles most of the top privately held early-to-mid-stage technology companies in the country (and some globally) as well as most VC’s, growth equity funds and corporate development departments from large industry players looking at technology acquisitions. Founded in 2007 by Oxford Univ.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 “I think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months. Any VC 3 years in saying otherwise would either be exaggerating, lucky or an extreme outlier.”

VC 387

VC venture capital financing finance 387

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

When Twitter first became popular with niche crowds in 2007 it seemed to take hold initially with bloggers. On the other hand were everybody else including those that tried to make a full time of it like Robert Scoble as well as those that did it as a side job like VCs, CEO’s and start-up entrepreneurs. Thank you, Twitter.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

by Michael Woolf that is worth any startup founder reading to get a sense of perspective on the reality warp that is startup world during a frothy market such as 1997-1999, 2005-2007 or 2012-2014. The reason is that no VC wants to see the venture debt provider get burned if you become bankrupt.

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startup VC frameworks capital 383

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

I rarely talk to any startup entrepreneur or VC who doesn’t feel it and somehow long for simpler times despite the benefits we all enjoy from increased enthusiasm for our sector. We are experiencing a frenetic time. For entrepreneurs there’s too much money sloshing around. Year in, year out.

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. As you can see from the chart their data suggests there are about $25 billion of VC distributions per year in the US. According to FLAG Capital there are 100 active VCs (as defined by making at least $1 million in VC per quarter for 4 consecutive quarters). Their data looks at tech VCs.

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VC peer-to-peer entrepreneurs investment 374

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

It’s a bit like if you bought a $1 million home in 2007 and want to sell it for $1 million today. One is slightly better and priced at $1 million, which you know from Zillow is what they paid for it in 2007. Another is slightly worse but priced at $700k and was bought in 2007 for $1 million. Not so VC.

venture capital 289

venture capital capital ventures advice 289

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 17, 2014

In 2007, I met Rob May for the first time in person at the first SXSW I ever went to. I can''t guarantee you''ll sell something, win VC dollars, go viral, etc. In 2010, I funded his company, Backupify , which has gone on to raise over $19 million in funding and is set to have their best year of revenue to date.

communities 339

communities VC accelerator startup 339

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 2, 2014

What might be a more relevant date is May 22nd, 2007. Henry told me that I should start a fund--me, a 27 year old former VC analyst turned product manager with no MBA at a startup that wasn''t really headed in any particular direction. It''s kind of a funny answer to "When did you start Brooklyn Bridge Ventures?".

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venture capital VC ventures technology 293

Gust

DECEMBER 13, 2011

I’ve recently taken a look at seed stage funding by venture capitalists (VCs) and angel investors over the past five years. For VCs, I chose to look at all seed stage VC deals (from MoneyTree©) as well as those in five of the most active regions in the country. All Seed-VC. VCs in NYC invested, on average, only $2.4

entrepreneurs 162

entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

I’m enjoying being a VC. I thought I’d talk a bit about the differences I’ve experienced between being an entrepreneur & a VC – you know, from “both sides of the table.&#. VC meetings going well. 2 million in VC. I swore never to do that as a VC. What do VC’s Experience?

entrepreneurs 384

entrepreneurs startup VC real estate 384

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2016

In 2007 I started using Twitter and most of my friends & colleagues wondered why people would care what I ate for lunch. In 2008 I started VC blogging. In 2006 I started using Facebook and most of my friends & colleagues thought I was strange. They thought it was like MySpace and why did I need a MySpace page?

networking 230

networking advice VC financing 230

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 11, 2014

I''m super proud of Rob, Ben and the whole Backupify team--and this is particularly special for me because Backupify was the first investment I ever made as a VC, and the first board I ever sat on. I didn''t actually get to meet him in person until SXSW in 2007. That was the year Twitter took off.

board 274

board venture capital creativity entrepreneurship 274

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 9, 2013

Raise a big VC round – yeah! I had foregone my VC term sheets to accept an offer yet I knew it wasn’t 100% probability to close – it never is. I was also deeply paranoid that a bad recession was coming (this was early 2007). How can you wake up every day and process that decision. Five million?

advice 405

advice VC creativity opportunity 405

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

We haven’t hit that wall yet for three reasons: 1) not enough elapsed time, 2) the VC market is frenzied now, too and 3) we haven’t seen a market downturn since the volume picked up. I saw VCs doing crazy things in 2007-08 when I first entered the VC market – crazy prices, limited due diligence, large funding rounds.

angel investing 299

angel investing investment investing real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2007, 2011) and for the hottest of companies and in bad markets for fund raising (2003, 2008) prices test the bottom end of the range. I’m a VC so I have an obvious bias. I saw this kind of pricing when I first entered the VC market in 2007. There is no such thing as a uniform price. I raised my A round at a $31.5

startup 336

startup advice pitching investment 336

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 285

startup VC entrepreneurs investment 285

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2020

My largest investor was a financial firm that invested in my prior funds to get into the VC business—and in the six years since they first invested, they had built out a team and a strategy that no longer involved doing much seed. I was there for the first Etsy VC pitch meeting in a Fort Greene apartment.

VC 368

VC hospitality investment investing 368

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2011

More importantly, I know them both for a while--Hilary since August of 2007 through twitter and, of course, getting to work with her at Path 101, and Kara since I used to e-mail her about her Boomtown columns in the WSJ over ten years ago. They're awesome and I'd show up to hear them speak anywhere.

data analysis 298

data analysis venture capital communities entrepreneurs 298

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 14, 2019

USV seeded Tumblr along with our friends at Spark in the summer of 2007 and were actively involved in the development of the company until its sale to Yahoo! I maintained an active Tumblog from before we invested in 2007 until October 2016, when I stopped posting there. There was no moment when I decided to stop posting there.

media 201

media investment investing development 201

StartupNation

JULY 28, 2021

It would be reasonable to assume that VC funding would drop in 2020, especially during the uncertainty of the pandemic. Only about 12% of decision makers at VC firms are women, and of all the partners at these firms, only 2.4% Alternatives to VC funding for female founders. at its all-time high. . However, U.S.

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