Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

” This is a frequent theme of mine when asked to speak to audience about the VC industry. And this is fueled by the VC culture in Silicon Valley. I was recently talking to a VC about a business I was looking at and I was asking whether he found the business interesting, too. It is VC math, like it or not.

startup 390

startup VC venture capital entrepreneurs 390

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5 What is a VC fund? VC’s don’t invest 100% of their own money.

VC 269

VC venture capital investing investment 269

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. If you are a venture capital investor and you''re not preparing yourself to succeed in a more diverse ecosystem of entrepreneurs, you''re just going to get left behind.

venture capital 407

venture capital VC ventures capital 407

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly? Short answer – yes.

VC 263

VC board investing investment 263

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). Are “strategic investors&# (e.g.

VC 225

VC social gaming venture capital networking 225

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

The speaks to the continued confidence in the venture capital markets and as I had predicted some time ago the VC markets right now are a great place to invest – especially relative to other places to put one’s money. If you want to understand how the VC industry is changing there is a great primer in the link.

ventures 396

ventures VC venture capital real estate 396

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. For entrepreneurs there’s too much money sloshing around. We are experiencing a frenetic time. My general advice is to do less.

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

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). THE VC VALUATION GOD Valuation obsession wasn’t restricted to startups.

VC 466

VC culture sustainability capital 466

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

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

What I wish for every single entrepreneur out there is to be so majorly disappointed in their lives. What's worse is that this end of the market is even affecting early stage VC mindset. If you're a VC and you think for a second that whether or not Square pricing at $2.9 Can we just all let that sink in for a second?

angel investing 407

angel investing venture capital VC media 407

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

This is something I think entrepreneurs don’t totally understand and it’s worthwhile they do. 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 If you''re newer to VC math here''s a great primer]. Nobody cares. Why the latter?

VC 399

VC advice finance financing 399

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. Segment Three: “VC Deals Funded this Week”. Segment Four, “VC Discussion – How Should Entrepreneurs Think about ‘Strategic’ Investors?”.

VC 236

VC venture capital ventures support 236

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. 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. hours / day.

VC 374

VC peer-to-peer entrepreneurs investing 374

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. Answer: Not much. It’s a shame.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

This is the third article in a series on what it takes to be a great angel investor (and why this should matter to entrepreneurs). I should say that I agree that naive optimism in entrepreneurs can produce higher beta (upside or flops) and that’s good from an investment standpoint if you’re looking for big returns.

angel investing 284

angel investing investment investing VC 284

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. I see it in many young pups. Same as I felt.

ventures 419

ventures VC capital SaaS 419

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2014

It was 2009 and it was terribly difficult to get any financing (if you can remember a time like that!) and I thought if we brought the community together for common purpose we could create more of a sense of community to help new entrepreneurs get funded, assemble teams, raise profiles and help with biz dev, product, etc.

accelerator 290

accelerator mentorship peer-to-peer VC 290

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. But I’ll judge the angel class of 2009/2010 on a 7-10 year time horizon. I was very active in 2009 / early 2010.

angel investing 299

angel investing investing investment real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Gogii came in my office in 2009 with three of the most talented founders I had seen. As you can see – they bring both executive & domain knowledge - which I’m on record as saying gives entrepreneurs “an unfair advantage.&#. By the next Monday we had lost the deal to a NorCal VC. Mostly, I love writing.

investment 310

investment investing VC board 310

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. “I think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months. 5 years ago. . None have exited. That’s normal.

VC 387

VC venture capital ventures financing 387

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

Since 2009 we’ve been in an unequivocal bull market. An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. It’s when the game slows. ” The Lessons of Shelfware.

incubation 354

incubation board VC innovation 354

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2015

These are all normal things but in this big run since 2009 we’ve all gotten used to nearly 100% follow-on financing rates, valuations only moving up, deals clearly the convertible note caps and low mortality rates. The impact hits VCs in an immediate way that most entrepreneurs don’t realize.

finance 344

finance financing ventures real estate 344

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.

startup 276

startup VC media networking 276

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

Now that he’s become a VC he’s promising me he’ll provide way more public information and discourse so please welcome him by following him on Twitter and better yet welcoming him with a Tweet of your own linking to his Twitter handle or this post. The idea immediately resonated. I stayed close. And he followed through.

ventures 340

ventures investing investment board 340

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

I’d like to explain as best I can my opinion on what is going on because most of what I hear from entrepreneurs is not only wrong but is reminiscent of what I heard in 1997-2000. What is the True Sentiment of VCs? It pains me to see the typical (and predictable) responses on Twitter, “VCs want prices to drop!”

startup 285

startup VC entrepreneurs investing 285

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

In a world where the economy only heads in one direction (read: 2009-2014) most investors & entrepreneurs forget to pay attention to gross burn. The reason is that no VC wants to see the venture debt provider get burned if you become bankrupt. If Pre-VC be mindful that in tough times capital can take longer to raise. *

startup 383

startup VC frameworks capital 383

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

In the early spring of 2009, the fundraising nuclear winter of the previous year hadn't yet thawed. Many of you entrepreneurs know that feeling. Back when I was pitching my previous startup to investors, it had never really dawned on me that they had experienced what I was going through--and that a VC firm was essentially a startup.

ventures 280

ventures pitching VC startup ecosystem 280

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 27, 2010

Geolocation is so 2009. I can be frustrating for entrepreneurs who can’t seem to get a VCs interest until someone else is interested as well, but there’s actually a logic behind it, believe it or not. Ok, so we’re all doing social TV now. Haven’t you heard?

VC 186

VC venture capital media board 186

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. It is additive. It is a communication platform.

VC 292

VC peer-to-peer investing investment 292

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

Two weeks after Brad’s post I was at the 140 Conference in LA and I held open office hours for any entrepreneur who wanted to spend 15 minutes talking with a VC about their business. But it turns out I met a bunch of really interesting entrepreneurs. But TWTFelipe is an entrepreneur. Crazy, huh? Her response?

education 282

education creativity innovation entrepreneurs 282

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

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. Bill Gurley , a well known VC from Benchmark Capital, seemed to have a 2-year hiatus from blogging and has now picked up the pace.

VC 219

VC creativity networking media 219

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

But they weren’t there in 2009 when you were up late nights shitting yourself whether you really were smart for pursuing this idea. That was back when VCs weren’t so quick to respond to emails. I hope to offer experiences from being an entrepreneur and being a VC.&#. I started blogging 2 years ago.

advice 391

advice VC finance financing 391

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

Fewer and fewer tech entrepreneurs who obviously believe in science are going to want to be in a place where you have to debate with sitting governors, let alone your neighbors, the obvious value of a mask during a pandemic, or how female reproductive organs work. They’re less impactful on a year to year basis.

communities 434

communities startup real estate mentorship 434

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

The idea is simple enough: several female VC partners at top funds will hold 1-hour meetings with 40 promising female entrepreneurs looking to get advice on their business and pitch in a friendly, non-judgmental, safe environment. 8% of VC partnerships, for example). With 8% of partners at VC firms being female?—?we

founder 256

founder peer-to-peer VC mentorship 256

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 15, 2012

He spotted Facebook in 2004 and Spotify in 2009. Seems to me that New York could use a guy who goes around broadening the visions of New York entrepreneurs. Parker made a huge dent in the web as co-founder of Napster, then built Plaxo up to 20 million users. or would he have been convinced to take a financing round?

startup 278

startup finance financing venture capital 278

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

If you do a capped note it’s bad for the entrepreneur. I would never as a VC fund a round and then expect somebody else to pay a higher price right after me. I also would never expect another VC to do that to me. Since 2009 I have been counseling people to offer discounts to the first angel investors.

finance 294

finance financing pitching VC 294

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Ironically enough, the second nudge she gave my career also had to do with AOL--ten years later when in 2009, she introduced me to Jon Brod who was forming AOL Ventures. Does that make it a viable strategy for every new entrepreneur? My first article for the monthly edition was on AOL. Are there examples of that? Not in the slightest.

data analysis 286

data analysis venture capital communities entrepreneurs 286