Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

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).

VC 466

VC culture sustainability capital 466

Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

During our recent Dreamit Kickoff week, Bullpen Capital Founder and General Partner Paul Martino ( @ahpah ) spoke with our Spring 2020 cohort about the state of the VC ecosystem in the current economic crisis. The founder negotiated with the fund and ultimately accepted a 15% lower price. This is not without precedent.

ventures 334

ventures startup capital board 334

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I recently spoke at the Founder Showcase at the request of Adeo Ressi. I said that at the Founder Showcase, too. And for many of these they were (over) funded 7-10 years ago and don’t necessarily all represent great returns for investors or founders. I said, “It’s much easier now than it was in 2008/09.&#

real estate 309

real estate entrepreneurs finance financing 309

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 1, 2021

Contributed by Alexi Cashen, an EO San Francisco member who is CEO and co-founder of Elenteny Imports , co-founder of St. As co-founder and CEO of Elenteny Imports, a B2B freight forwarding logistics company, and co-founder and chief revenue officer of St. Hildie’s Botonica, and host of The Alexi Cashen Podcast.

hospitality 268

hospitality leadership collaboration entrepreneurship 268

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

He first came to see me in 2008 when we was raising money for his 1st startup – NextMedium. At every entrepreneur event I through between 2008-2012 I invite Hamet because he was a great mentor for entrepreneurs. I’ve known Hamet for 5 years. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the problems in this structure.

ventures 340

ventures investment investing board 340

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

We have an entire generation of startup founders who don’t have muscle memory from getting their burn rates back into shape from 2008/09 or 2001-2005. When things are hard the best leaders have teams that will rally around them. Some companies have to go first. Others will follow. But many of us have been there.

VC 392

VC capital culture venture capital 392

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 6, 2023

In 2008, I had just become a venture capitalist. That’s when people started to believe in better times ahead again, that the exit markets would support higher valuations, that businesses could thrive - when exits started to flourish again, liquidity returned to the system to founders, teams, & investors.

venture capital 92

venture capital ventures capital support 92

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2015

It’s my hypothesis of why so many founding teams have 3-4 founders. I’ve seen many first-time founders who had fallings out with their co-founders, had lawsuits, had investors bail on them, lost market momentum. I saw this in 2001-2003 and in 2008-2010. I fund both types all the time. Yet failure smells.

creativity 378

creativity culture entrepreneurs energy 378

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

Scott’s first big foray into industry-changing companies came with CarsDirect, an IdeaLab company where he was the initial founder & CEO. Founded in 2008 in Santa Monica by Ron Goldman (former CRO of shopping.com) and Rahul Sonnad. Incubated by Clearstone Ventures in 2008. Current round: $4. Total raised: $6.0mm.

VC 248

VC incubation ventures capital 248

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

Chris Dixon made the point that he thinks investors should look for the founders to have the domain knowledge rather than them having domain knowledge themselves. But while I prefer a certain naive optimism in founders I can’t see the logic that this extends to angel investors.

angel investing 284

angel investing investment investing VC 284

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MAY 6, 2020

She recently attended a Facebook Live stream hosted by Warren Rustand , co-founder of EO’s Leadership Academy in Washington, D.C., Others recall the 2008 financial crisis. Kalika Yap , is founder and CEO of both Orange & Bergamot , a creative agency for female founders, and Citrus Studios , a branding and design agency.

advice 274

advice transportation leadership creativity 274

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 6, 2020

Like the downturns in 2008 and 2001, this has been a very trying time for entrepreneurs running startups. Alex Haro, co-founder of Life360 , one of the most downloaded apps of all time, went through many challenging times building up his startup into a public company. The pandemic of 2020 has tested most sectors of the economy.

peer-to-peer 321

peer-to-peer startup advice entrepreneurs 321

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

Another founder … “When I pitched the idea to Adam, he was super on board,” Mr. Sloyan said. If anything it felt like a public service to founders to me. Founder fighting, IP lawsuits, high-profile resignations, trouble fund raising, bad product release, 409a complications, community is rebelling against the CEO: You.

startup 323

startup advice pitching VC 323

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Founded in November 2007 in New York City by Alexis Maybank and Kevin Ryan (co-founder of DoubleClick); CEO is Susan Lyne (ex-CEO Marta Stewart Living Omnimedia) Revenue estimates: $50mm in 2008; $170mm in 2009 (versus budget of $150mm); $450mm forecasted for 2010. Gilt Group is currently the largest private sale web site in US.

VC 240

VC peer-to-peer advice ventures 240

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

Andy Areitio is a partner at the early-stage fund TheVentureCity , a new venture and acceleration model that helps diverse founders achieve global impact. Fundraising is distracting for founders and can even hurt their company in the early days. Founders tend to make a series of classic mistakes when raising funding.

venture capital 107

venture capital capital ventures founder 107

TechCrunch

JANUARY 19, 2022

In short, women VCs are just as inclined to favor male founders as their male peers. How else explain that while top VCs have been more accessible than ever because of Zoom and online interactions, the share of funding going to all-female founders is dropping and not rising? in 2008 — that’s quite fast!!”

founder 95

founder peer-to-peer venture capital ventures 95

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 2, 2014

Many startups these days are started by young, technical or product founders who are in the idealistic phase of their lives and careers. I call it “ the Co-Founder mythology ” and it’s persistent in our startup mythology. It’s not that I don’t love idealism – I was young once, too! Reggie Brown.

startup 385

startup coworking advice leadership 385

Dream It

JANUARY 23, 2019

The founders of Trendkite came into Dreamit six years ago with just an idea on a napkin,” said Steve Welch, Dreamit Co-Founder and Chairman. “It Every day at Dreamit, we see founders at various stages of that company-building process,” states Dreamit Managing Partner Steve Barsh.

real estate 210

real estate media accelerator pitching 210

TechCrunch

JULY 18, 2022

Matt Cohen, founder and managing partner of Ripple Ventures , was the founding investor of Turnstyle Solutions, which was acquired by Yelp in 2017. With the economic downturn and associated uncertainty, startup founders at every stage have been rushing to shore up their balance sheets and extend runways. Matt Cohen. Contributor.

founder 95

founder finance financing ventures 95

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 years ago. That company was Invoca, which just announced a $20 million fund raise led by Accel.

VC 387

VC venture capital finance financing 387

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And people like Jeff Clavier, Aydin Senkut, Dave McClure, Chris Sacca & Eric Paley (at Founder Collective) are leading the charge. Chris Sacca talked about how a $20 million exit can change a founder’s life and that shouldn’t be scoffed at. That’s awesome. I had two kids and a rental house.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs finance 308

TechCrunch

MARCH 18, 2022

For founders, especially those starting companies for the first time, the gyrations of the stock market, the resulting correction in public market tech stocks, and the inevitable impact on private company fundraising might seem disheartening. Founder dilution and investor ownership are part of a long game. million; Airbnb raised $7.2

startup founder 89

startup founder founder startup venture capital 89

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

It turned out I wasn’t such a great product manager, the technical things we were doing were about two years too early—about to be made orders of magnitude easier by a lot of cloud and big data tools, and, oh, yeah, Lehman went under when I was pitching VCs for money in 2008. Your salary, what you pay employees, work hours, etc.

finance 274

finance financing pitching founder 274

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

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. The discussion with Howard Morgan starts off by acknowledging Josh Kopelman as a co-founder of First Round Capital. In 2008 they raised a much larger fund $132.5

capital 284

capital board VC pitching 284

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JUNE 17, 2022

Contributed to EO by Vladimir Gendelman, an EO Detroit member and founder and CEO of Company Folders, Inc. , During the 2008 recession, while everyone else was hanging onto the gunwales of tossing ships, offering bargains, and hoping for a quick end to the pain, a restaurant near our office started remodeling.

strategy 220

strategy creativity energy investing 220

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

So as of 2008 total LP commitments were still at nearly $250 billion. Our current fund was raised in 2008/09.] But VC is an “illiquid asset&# so funds didn’t disappear quickly - In 2000/01 the stock market quickly adjusted punishing investors in the NASDAQ and in individual public technology stocks.

VC 311

VC startup real estate finance 311

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

years ago you’d remember RIP Good Times from Sequoia, which still strikes me as having been prudent advice in late 2008. I talked to the founder about this and he said, “I’m not looking for a ‘holiday bump’ – it may come, it may not. If you were reading the headlines from only 2.5 So which is it?

advice 391

advice VC financing finance 391

American Entrepreneurship

MARCH 12, 2025

Many startups are founded with great ideas but fail because the founder lacks the adaptability, problem-solving ability, or grit to push through setbacks. This mindset is not just for business owners; it’s valuable for startup founders, intrapreneurs (employees who innovate within companies), freelancers, and even students.

strategy 55

strategy startup creativity mentorship 55

Founders Coop

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

And we’re over the moon to be working with Goodbill co-founders Patrick Haig and Ian Sefferman for the second time. We named our firm Founders’ Co-op because we believe that extraordinary founders – not clever ideas or VC cash – are the bedrock of startup value creation over time.

VC 24

VC founder hospitality health 24

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 26, 2011

2004 gave us widespread blogging and Meetups, and 2008 showed how the web could be a community organizing and fundraising tool. Hopefully this becomes the year that most of the startup teams you see have not only a business person and a tech person, but also a designer--and you start to see people looking for "design co-founders".

innovation 301

innovation technology peer-to-peer communities 301

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

Our last fund was $200 million but as you may already know since we raised that fund we added new partners Greg Bettinelli and Kara Nortman and Venture Partner Hamet Watt – all of whom are busy looking at new deals for the firm in addition to Yves Sisteron (the founder), Steven Dietz (also part of founding team) and myself.

ventures 396

ventures VC venture capital real estate 396

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 19, 2012

6/15/2008 – Application network of its own apps plus agency business plus ad network. 10/26/2008 – Agency business and branded applications – No more ad network or mention of their own apps. Buddy Media can build an application and drive 1 million users in just a few months.

media 268

media networking social gaming SaaS 268

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write this post since September of last year when Brad Feld first wrote about the The Founders Visa Movement. TWTFelipe is the founder of TWTApps , who had developed some really cool add-on applications for Twitter to extend its functionality. university in math or science&# (Thomas Friedman).

education 282

education creativity innovation entrepreneurs 282

Tomasz Tunguz

MAY 2, 2022

A founder recently told me he would have built his company differently in another fundraising market. In 2008, tightfistedness dominated the market. Today, a story is sufficient to raise a 2008-sized Series B. In my notebook, I sketched this 2x2. Those constraints imply different trade-offs.

capital 143

capital real estate enablement development 143

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Contributed to EO by Dave Galbenski, an EO Detroit member who served as EO Global Chair in 2008-2009. Dave is co-founder and chairman of the Global School of Entre p reneurship , which provides education for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. He is a graduate of the inaugural class of EO’s Global Speakers Academy.

entrepreneurs 286

entrepreneurs networking education board 286

Entrepreneurs' Organization

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

I heard this in an Entrepreneurs’ Organization Portland chapter monthly learning event with keynote speaker Mark Moses of Make Big Happen in 2008 at the beginning of the Great Recession. “During this recession, a third of your businesses will die, a third will barely survive, and a third will thrive.” You will be glad you did.

real estate 234

real estate entrepreneurs creativity culture 234

Entrepreneurs' Organization

OCTOBER 4, 2023

My first company, a mortgage bank, succumbed to the 2008 mortgage crisis. Contributed to EO by Daniel Marcos, an EO member in Austin, who is co-founder and CEO of Growth Institute , which provides online executive education based on the Scaling Up methodology and has been named to the Inc. On a personal note, I’ve been there.

leadership 38

leadership culture economic growth education 38