Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. There are now signs the VC market has gathered pace meaning it’s a great time to be fund raising.

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VC venture capital networking innovation 255

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2018

This will be the post where I dangerously attempt to walk the minefield of a white male VC opining on the topic. Besides, how effective of a filter is it that someone can get coffee with a non-VC and convince them that you'd want to see the deal? That pitch has never excited any VC in the history of VC funding.

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VC pitching peer-to-peer founder 270

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

And awesome to get to spend time with Ian Sigalow “comparing notes” (VC speak ). With all the external presenters, the ones I enjoyed the most were Dan Senor who wrote the book Startup Nation (an examination of the Israeli technology scene). Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Start-up Advice Startup Advice.

peer-to-peer 279

peer-to-peer advice VC board 279

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. They should heed the age old advice that raising slightly more money while you can is always better than trying to optimize future valuations. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly?

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VC board investing investment 263

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 11, 2010

This past December I spent a week in Boston to try to get to know some of the local VC’s and entrepreneurs a bit better. I once mentioned this idea to a fellow SoCal VC when I told him I wanted a CIC in LA and he said, “Co-location is dead. If anyone has experience, advice or dollars and wants to help please be in touch.

peer-to-peer 285

peer-to-peer incubation startup advice 285

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

She wrote the book that inspired the way that people at McKinsey and Accenture do presentations. But seriously her book is spot on. I spotted my fellow VC Leo Spiegel (from Mission Ventures) who had spoken previously to the same group and asked about his experiences. OK, hold back on your consulting humor.

advice 362

advice VC entrepreneurs education 362

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

We spoke about the disruption of VC through crowd funding. VC can’t don’t invest in these kinds of companies because they can’t get out (no liquidity event). Mr. Christensen has published a new book, “ How Will You Measure Your Life. Apple came along with proprietary infrastructure, which made it easy.

education 403

education disruption entrepreneurship venture capital 403

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 21, 2021

A well-known entrepreneur turned VC, who will go unnamed because I am not sure he would want me to share this conversation publicly, once told me “if you remove a founder, you must sell the company within a couple of years or it will start to decline in value.” Operational leadership, fortunately, does not.

leadership 279

leadership VC advice sustainability 279

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. In Dan Rather’s book he talks about Ruth Bader Ginsberg who was appointed the the Supreme Court in 1993.

founder 256

founder peer-to-peer VC mentorship 256

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

It’s sort of like having an Encyclopedic history book before just launching your product and seeing whether anybody uses it. Here’s the thing – as Michael Lewis talks about in his book, the adage of investing is that “if you’re reading about something in the papers it’s already too late.”. Part three will be published shortly.

angel investing 288

angel investing investment investing advice 288

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

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

I’m not anti VC. But there are a lot of things that become norms in the VC industry that always drove me crazy from entrepreneur’s side of the table. One of them is when VCs say, “I’d like to ‘noodle’ on that for a while.&#. I’d love it if VCs gave more honest and direct feedback.

entrepreneurs 297

entrepreneurs VC advice strategy 297

Hunter Walk

FEBRUARY 22, 2025

The phrase needle in a haystack is commonly credited to the book Don Quixote from the early 1600s (“needle is a bottle of hay”) but there’s also a Fujian proverb “To dive into the sea, to feel for a needle” that is thought to be even older and gets to the same point. Ok, back to the VC content marketing.

startup 89

startup VC strategy leadership 89

Startup Grind

AUGUST 15, 2018

He has worked with several startups, invested in companies like Mayvenn, Gimlet Media, Blavity, Airspace Technologies, Codeverse, and many others Pitch your startup for a chance to meet with Cross Culture VC Q&A: What is your / your fund's mission? The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho remains my favorite business book. BUILD and EXECUTE!

culture 111

culture VC pitching investing 111

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. And they will offer you some of the best business advice you will ever receive if you’re open to it. It’s precisely because you work so closely with your VCs for so many years that it is unbelievably important that you find the good actors from the bad.

startup 363

startup real estate VC venture capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Notes Wadhwa, “Jason [Calacanis], Fred [Wilson], and Silicon Valley VC’s, I’ve got news for you: you’ve got it all wrong. To anyone who believes his data proves anything please do me a favor and go read The Black Swan – my favorite book of the past 5 years. I’m now a VC that funds entrepreneurs.

entrepreneurship 289

entrepreneurship entrepreneurs advice VC 289

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I recently read a book I’d highly recommend to every reader of this blog called “ Yes, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive &# by Robert B. Cialdini who is also author of a very well received book called “ Influence &# (which I plan to read). You should, too. (no, This is all explicit decision making.

strategy 293

strategy venture capital SaaS investing 293

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

it is also the title of a fabulous book from Internet 1.0 If you have strong VC support now and a lot of cash in the bank you may be willing to accept a higher burn rate (say $300k or $400k per month) than a company with angel money and less cash in the bank. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

startup 383

startup VC frameworks capital 383

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

You can now take advantage of this wisdom directly as Brad has now published it for everybody in a fantastic new book, “Startup Communities.” ” Put simply, if you care about building a successful tech community outside Silicon Valley you should read this book. Oh, and buy Brad’s book. Here are mine: 1.

communities 378

communities startup venture capital capital 378

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “ Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts? She has a quote from literally every major VC from whom you’d want to hear. ” [it's short, you should read it]. Please watch this. Every single one.

entrepreneurs 341

entrepreneurs entrepreneurship VC pitching 341

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

So it was my great pleasure to host Chamillionaire on This Week in VC this week talking marketing, entrepreneurship, old media and, of course, music. Raising Capital – The VC equivalent for musicians is getting signed by a major label. People want what they can’t have and VCs are no different. .’

entrepreneurs 356

entrepreneurs media VC creativity 356

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Unsurprisingly for Kara is was the VC connections. It’s something you’d imagine working best on a tablet where the parents take digital assets (think: photos & stickers) and engage with their children in story telling, arts-and-crafts, scrap-booking and the like. Startup Advice' Now ladies, get back to work.

startup 398

startup creativity advice entrepreneurs 398

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. Use the fact that you were on an anointed list to build credibility when you eventually approach journalists (and VC’s, customers, employees). But more broadly it got me thinking to one of the biggest mistakes tech executives get into in the first place.

advice 307

advice media startup SaaS 307

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

I knew him well before he became a VC. I knew his as he considered becoming a VC and we talked a lot about how it was going for me in my early years. He is profiled in my favorite book about ADHD, Delivered From Distraction , where the author talks about high-performance ADHD professionals. I’m one of them.

VC 309

VC data analysis incubation health 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2014

After my first Tweet with the Notorious mothafucka quote , I thought about my role as a VC and I Tweeted the following. The following post is advice I gave to my good friend Sam Teller when he was just a junior baller, “ Never Ask a Busy Person to Lunch.” It came from my weekend activities.

networking 366

networking peer-to-peer advice mentorship 366

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Many of you have read or at least know the primary thesis of “ Crossing the Chasm &# the seminal book on marketing your products to mainstream consumers by Geoffrey Moore. The book popularized the technology adoption lifecycle curve that originally came out of Iowa State University shown below.

peer-to-peer 294

peer-to-peer advice innovation support 294

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. This is a theme that comes up in one the most influential business books for me of the past decade, The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb where he talks about the role that luck plays in business success.

advice 391

advice VC financing finance 391

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

This was customer interaction at its finest and as a result they invited him to meet with our entire sales staff and offer advice on the sales process from a customer’s perspective. Contrast that with a VC conversation I had. I even once met with one very, very well known VC who told me, “I don’t attend LP meetings.

peer-to-peer 341

peer-to-peer VC entrepreneurs support 341

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

I will even take to emailing people I don’t know offering small bits of advice. I shifted my thinking a few years ago after I read Tim Ferris’s book The Four Hour Workweek (link is to a short summary I wrote). Can you please intro me to XYZ VC? If you do randomly write me I have advice. I try to be helpful.

advice 314

advice culture board VC 314

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

He calls this competing with “non consumption” It was the most profound business strategy book I had read and greatly influenced how I thought about company building and certainly how I think about investing. I sometimes see VCs debate ad finitum about a company’s strategy. Startup Advice' Markets decide.

strategy 401

strategy startup peer-to-peer advice 401

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2010

The concept comes from a Stephen Covey book called “ First Things First ,&# which is a worthwhile book ( Wikipedia overview here ) but if you haven’t read his seminal book “ 7 Habits of Highly Effective People &# you should start with that. Tags: Startup Advice. Here’s what I learned.

mentorship 374

mentorship creativity energy entrepreneurs 374

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

People assume that I’m biased because I’m a VC and think you should always get the highest valuation possible. But if you do this early (pre VC) then the price points are pretty low. I’ve heard every excuse in the book and you’d be surprised how many people put this off. A: It’s not best.

venture capital 282

venture capital capital ventures angel investing 282

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

He had an idea for a startup that would help consumers better book service jobs and would take on Service Magic, which he believed had a business model that could be disrupted. And I certainly didn’t want him having to trapse up-and-down Sand Hill Road informing every VC of his next idea. The company was called Red Beacon.

disruption 359

disruption VC entrepreneurs strategy 359

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

I believe that over capitalizing companies too early often favors the VC. Talking about whether to raise more money or not, their VC allegedly said to them: “If you had more capital, could you get to the future faster? If you’re a startup or product person and haven’t read his book Four Steps to Epiphany please do.

entrepreneurs 374

entrepreneurs incubation board VC 374

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

Do you imagine eventually raising VC and trying to build a faster growing company?” ” Because of the circles I run in I tend to meet many people who eventually do want to build large companies and therefore do want to eventually raise VC and “go big.” Your revenue is the $75 million you got paid in booking fees.

startup 418

startup VC venture capital investing 418

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 2, 2010

As a VC I’m acutely that a “yes&# decision to support an entrepreneur can do just that, yet I only write 2-4 of them per year and maybe another 3-4 as an angel. Your advice made a difference.&#. I booked non-refundable tickets. I know his life touched many of us that worked with him – in ways he never knew.

consulting 352

consulting peer-to-peer advice entrepreneurs 352

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

Founded it as a California LLC but your potential VC wants a Delaware C-Corp? I recently wrote a post on how to get access to VCs and angels where I outlined why lawyers are such an important tool for VC introductions. I think you’ll end up with a newer lawyer who’s trying to build her book of businesses.

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startup advice entrepreneurs VC 318