500

MARCH 26, 2020

When I moved to San Francisco in 2012, I was working on my fourth startup and looking to join an accelerator. But from a young age, going against the grain was in my DNA. It’s what led me to San Francisco, and, ultimately, what drew me to 500 Startups.

accelerator 306

accelerator startup entrepreneurship ventures 306

David Teten VC

JULY 27, 2021

We have collected a wide range of freebies, contests, accelerators, online communities, and VCs designed for student tech founders. The Kauffman Foundation found 47% of US tech founders held degrees in STEM while 34% held degrees in business, finance, and accounting. 1) Freebies for Student Tech Founders. Right here.

founder 144

founder mentorship peer-to-peer pitching 144

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

This meant: Less capital to start a company thus the rise of “micro VCs” Younger, more technical founders (not as big of a leap to take a risk on a 24-year-old when it’s $250k and not $5 million. So the startup work moves to where the startup founders live and not vice versa. Welcome to the future.

startup 390

startup communities venture capital angel capital 390

American Entrepreneurship

MARCH 8, 2024

Hande Cilingir has the unique and prestigious status as a female-founder of a tech unicorn Founded in 1909 International Women’s Day continues to be both a celebration of women and a rallying cry for women’s equality. In recognition of the day, AI-native platform Insider issued a press release honoring its co-founder Hande Cilingir.

founder 105

founder entrepreneurship communities education 105

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Tracy DiNunzio isn’t your typical Silicon Valley startup founder. Sam is the managing director of Launchpad LA and we were about to pick our 2012 class of entrepreneurs. And through this industry legitimacy she was able to get the ear of Dany Levy, the co-founder of Daily Candy. How’s that for an ex painter?

peer-to-peer 363

peer-to-peer entrepreneurs startup entrepreneurship 363

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 16, 2014

It''s also not the best way to create a helpful syndicate of investors that share the founder''s vision for the company. If all my deals came as intros from trusted connections that I know for years versus at founder pitch events that''s interesting data. Fear not, founders. The first thing I did was trace my sources.

VC 417

VC pitching networking venture capital 417

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

Ynon & I first discussed Maker in early 2012. The founders had been responsible for gaining staggering scale in the past 3 years, having been trail-blazers in building a network of talent and an unrivaled understanding of the YouTube ecosystem. ” Dana & I took a chance on the founders early on.

peer-to-peer 320

peer-to-peer media networking board 320

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., In terms of pandemics, we remember avian flu (1997), SARS (2003) and MERS (2012). Yap is a thriving serial entrepreneur whose businesses include Citrus Studios , Luxe Link , and the Orange & Bergamot.

advice 274

advice transportation leadership creativity 274

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

This feels like a West Coast mentality, because deals seem to feel "hot" more often out there--I believe because of founder pedigree. It''s more often the case that founders are repeat entrepreneurs on the west coast. — Brian Alvey (@brianalvey) November 10, 2013. Tell that one to the Native Americans who were already here.

venture capital 285

venture capital ventures education pitching 285

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 5, 2020

I like to tell the story of when I met Brian Armstrong, the founder of our portfolio company Coinbase in the summer of 2012. There was no social proof on these investments other than the fact that nobody else wanted to make the investment as much as we did. You can call it negative social proof.

VC 254

VC pitching investing investment 254

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

Ian Hathaway

JANUARY 6, 2020

Over the next eight years, Facebook would attract half a billion users and nearly $7 billion in venture capital investment, on its way to a May 2012 IPO that valued the company at more than $81 billion. Below is the average founder age along these dimensions: All companies (with at least one employee): 42 years Fastest growing 0.1%

startup founder 98

startup founder founder startup entrepreneurship 98

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

I wonder sometimes if founders even know about the hours their lawyers or advisers put in on evenings, weekends, vacations. I had dinner with my friend Brooke Hammerling , founder of Brew PR recently. Coincidentally my good friend Roger Ehrenberg wrote a post this past week on founders having trust in their VCs. VENTURE CAPITAL.

startup 363

startup real estate VC venture capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

Now of course there’s a lot more that goes into building a brand like the fact that the founders of Luma have long reputations in our industry and people respect them. Consider this blog post titled, “ Christmas 2012 Shatters More Smart Device and App Download Records.” But everybody knows that Luma produced it.

mix-use 389

mix-use advice VC technology 389

Dream It

AUGUST 29, 2019

For this reason, it would be ridiculous for a founder to ever tell a venture investor that they want to keep the company private. The exit strategy conversation should be nuanced, and founders should use it as a way to show investors you can think about things from different angles. In reality, exits are an outcome, not a strategy.

strategy 299

strategy VC energy disruption 299

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 22, 2020

Duolingo’s co-founder and CEO, Luis von Ahn , told me this in an email yesterday: 1. I’m betting on Duolingo (and have been since we made our seed investment in the company in 2012). The number of tests we administer per day has gone up 10x! So now the market is open to competition and the best product can win.

incumbents 192

incumbents education investing investment 192

TechCrunch

MARCH 28, 2022

The Family co-founder and CEO Alice Zagury announced in a blog post that the French startup accelerator is suing Oussama Ammar for multiple claims — breach of trust, forgery and use of forgery. The Family was originally founded in 2012 with three co-founders — Alice Zagury, Oussama Ammar and Nicolas Colin.

accelerator 91

accelerator founder startup accelerator communities 91

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

At every entrepreneur event I through between 2008-2012 I invite Hamet because he was a great mentor for entrepreneurs. He reached out to younger founders and offered to help via his network at AT&T, Google, media agencies … you name it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the problems in this structure.

ventures 340

ventures investing investment board 340

HPA

JANUARY 8, 2025

Founded in 2012 by Katlin Smith, Simple Mills is a market-leading natural foods brand offering premium better-for-you crackers, cookies, snack bars, and baking mixes. As HPA reflects on this decade-long journey, we recognize the privilege of working alongside an inspiring founder like Smith.

innovation 70

innovation leadership sustainability support 70

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2011

The Foursquare founders had been to nearly every VC we could think of and no one, save for Bryce Roberts OATV who was willing to do half the deal if he could find an east coast partner, was willing to jump in. That's why I think that, by the end of 2012, Foursquare will have double the amount of users it has today.

VC 270

VC opportunity investing investment 270

TechCrunch

APRIL 19, 2022

Conductive Ventures raised a $200 million Fund III to continue its focus on investing in founders where other venture capital firms did not see the potential. Today, Conductive has 24 companies in its portfolio and boasts that over 50% of them are based outside the Bay Area and two-thirds of the founders are immigrants or minorities.

support 98

support ventures founder venture capital 98

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2022

Source: PitchBook data from 2012-2022. Across all stages, companies were seeing higher post-money valuations, anywhere from about 40% at the earliest stages to over 200% in the growth stages in the 2018 to 2022 period, compared to 2012 to 2018. Source: PitchBook data from 2012-2022. Source: PitchBook data from 2012-2022.

VC 94

VC founder capital ventures 94

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

The news this week that HQ Trivia has finally called it quits reminded me of this post I wrote back in 2012 about the difference in sustainability (and thus value) between entertainment and utility apps. And the result has been a predictable boom/bust cycle that has not produced a lot of value for founders or investors.

sustainability 172

sustainability founder VC technology 172

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

JULY 27, 2021

Kenna is the founder and chief executive of LinkUp , a company that provides small businesses in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines a digital space to collaborate as well as promote and sell their products and services. I graduated from college in 2012. 2021 YLAI Fellow Kenna George knows this well. I’m still with the company today.

pitching 219

pitching communities entrepreneurship networking 219

AsiaTechDaily

AUGUST 29, 2023

What connects these two brands is that they were both elevated to overseas success by the same person, Fujin Tree Group Founder Jay Wu. In 2012, by which time Wu was already cooperating with multiple Japanese fashion companies, he founded the Fujin Tree Group.

founder 98

founder peer-to-peer culture strategy 98

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Serial fintech entrepreneur Walter Cruttenden founded Acorns with his son, Jeff, in 2012 with the goal of helping low- and middle-income households invest and save responsibly. The pair wanted to simplify investing for the millions that have trouble getting started or continuing to invest.

investing 112

investing investment founder mix-use 112

Entrepreneurs' Organization

SEPTEMBER 18, 2018

In 2012, Girls Who Code launched, teaching girls computer programming. Sparked by a pair of scissors, some pantyhose and a party where founder, Sara Blakely , wanted to look her best, Spanx officially began production in 2000 and changed women’s fashion and fit forever. Boys outnumbered girls by a wide margin.

entrepreneurs 130

entrepreneurs consulting culture finance 130

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

With a massive increase in companies created and a huge number of sources one trend that we witnessed from 2012–2015 was the rise of the undisciplined round. Angels / seed often wanted to exit early and late-stage wanted more ownership than founders would sell so secondary transactions were common. I Leaderless Rounds.

venture capital 271

venture capital capital ventures VC 271

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

The other day I was with the founders of Vidme – Warren Shaeffer and Alex Benzer – who are two of my most favorite founders to work with almost precisely because their behavior is antithetical to the frenzied market behavior. These days I find myself doing less.

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

I’m thankful to the founders of the companies that I invested in where the business has been on a crazy growth trajectory over the past year or two. Thank you to the team that had extreme success in 2012 and a more challenging year in 2013. I know you’re our unsung heroes and I appreciate what you do.

advice 288

advice SaaS sustainability board 288

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

In fact, most early investor work hard to help their startups get to the next level so it makes no sense for the angel investor and founders to be at odds. Convertible debt WITH a cap is stupid for founders. This has worked very well in the 2009-2012 time frame because the tech market has boomed in this period.

startup 354

startup VC entrepreneurs finance 354

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

For me Silicon Beach doesn’t quite encapsulate the wonderful, dynamic, creative, large, thriving community that is the 13 million proud Angelinos any more than Silicon Alley captures the bustling 2012 community of New York City. If anything using the word “Silicon” seems a bit derivative to NorCal. Don’t you think?

communities 304

communities startup creativity VC 304

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 5, 2024

Set Goals Like Google: Why OKRs Surpass Other Goal-Setting Methods for Entrepreneurs Eric Crews (EO Boston), founder and CEO of management consulting firm Crews & co., Million in Startup Funding Tal Moore (EO Los Angeles) is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Popsmith. shared his preferred goal-setting methodology. “I’ve

consulting 211

consulting real estate entrepreneurial ecosystem entrepreneurs 211

TechCrunch

MARCH 8, 2021

million round back in 2012 that tapped Bessemer, DFJ and others. TechCrunch asked Makerpad founder Ben Tossell about the structure of the deal, who said via email that his company will operate as a “stand-alone” entity from its new parent company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. That’s a no.

education 145

education communities VC accelerator 145

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Sam also had a vision as early as 2012 about how MakeSpace would be a large employer of middle-income jobs: The company would hire employees rather than just have contractors and he would lead the effort to ensure they had opportunities for growth and benefits for their families. Seriously, this happens.

innovation 286

innovation startup board leadership 286

Y Combinator

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

It is always a good sign when founders come back and, indeed, they came up with a new idea and applied for the Winter 2012 batch. Amplitude founders Spenser Skates and Curtis Liu – March 2011. Around this time, Jeffrey Wang, a Stanford computer scientist and top-quality hacker, joined Spenser and Curtis as co-founder.

creativity 98

creativity education founder opportunity 98

500

MARCH 25, 2019

500 has been an active player, investing in talented entrepreneurs in the MENA region since 2012. We’ve been helping the ecosystem develop, supporting not just founders, but other ecosystem counterparts like investors, governments, and corporations engage effectively with startups in the region.

support 128

support entrepreneurs development investment 128