Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

This is part of my Startup Advice series of posts. I definitely don’t rule out first timers – I just invested in one to be announced soon who I am really excited about – but I greatly prefer experience. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice Startup Advice. But it’s not my strategy.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

You may feel as I did in 1999 that the more smart people around the table the more intros you’ll have, the more sage advice you’ll receive and the more impressive you’ll seem to outsiders. By definition you can’t have 3 investors each wanting to increase from 5% to 20% ownership or you’re fawked anyways.

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VC advice pitching investing 314

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 8, 2011

If* you believe that a good venture capitalist should have launched their own company and exited, then I simply don't have that track record. The point is, someone building a career in venture capital that doesn't include prior entrepreneurial success probably doesn't look like they have much to offer in the beginning.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

Almost by definition. Mavericks are by definition bad at following rules and bad at process. They’re not afraid to break a few eggs along the way – nothing ventured, nothing gained. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Sales & Marketing Advice. They’re also usually very loyal to your organization.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

So you end up with superlative amplification. &# Mobile penetration set to double next year reaching all time highs,&# “venture capital market set to implode next year – more than 70% of firms may disappear&# or “drug use in California growing at an alarming rate.&# We buy headlines. It can happen.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

We are money, advice, coaching, cheerleading, interventionist but not “the decider.” In preparation for her reentry into VC she spoke with many mentors of hers for advice on venture capital. ” Such simple yet poignant advice. VCs have the safety of not being that person. That is what separates us.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

Funding is different – In Silicon Valley you have mega venture capital funds and many of them. In content creation we definitely have assets other markets don’t have. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Launchpad LA SoCal Stuff Start-up Advice Startup Advice. And still much work to be done.

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technology advice entrepreneurs innovation 290

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

Changes in the Software World & in Venture Capital. That didn’t make them bad – it just didn’t make them efficient at making rapid decisions of whether to fund a startup or not and the terms on which they would fund were typically not “market” for a startup company that would become venture backed one day.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Ex Venture Capitalist with Battery Ventures. In the most perfect sense of the definition. Startup Advice' I considered her one of LA’s great talents. You can imagine the narrative … Native Angelino. Competitive sportswoman. Stanford MBA. Leaves to work in Corp Dev at IAC. They are yin & yang. Kara as CEO.

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startup creativity advice entrepreneurs 398

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series about Raising Venture Capital. But I’m no longer an entrepreneur – I’m a VC at a $200 million fund called GRP Ventures , the largest active fund in Southern California. I think they definitely qualify as a VC and not a seed fund. I could definitely see that happening.

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VC real estate advice venture capital 283

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2012

One of the major trends I’ve outlined is this movement of entrepreneurs (and as a lagging indicator venture funds) to more urban environments. I think NY has always – by definition – been urban. Spark Capital, Flybridge, Founder Collective, NextView Ventures … all in Boston or Cambridge not west of the city.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2010

Anyone who works in the venture business or frankly just lives in Silicon Valley will be used to hearing a buzz word rise up out of nowhere to capture the technology zeitgeist and find its way into every entrepreneur’s product development plan or every aspiring entrepreneur’s pitch deck. Tags: Startup Advice.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. So I like that bit, too.

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startup VC venture capital entrepreneurs 390

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

And we all know that Ron Conway is considered the savviest of angel investors and yet by definition not all of his investments succeed. The founders of Quora were respected technologists at Facebook and knew a thing or two about bacn and toast before setting up their highly sought after venture. Want to do a Q&A website?

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angel investing investing investment advice 288

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. And why my advice to newer VCs would be not to feel bad if you’re missing out on what is perceived as a few hot deals. By definition this means others will doubt you. Upfront Ventures'

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VC investing investment entrepreneurs 374

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 22, 2017

There are a lot of ways the startup world describes venture capitalists that portrays a certain power dynamic, real or perceived, that I believe is at the heart of so many of the industry's problems. We can debate whether they're sociopaths, but we definitely shouldn't assume that every "great investor" is "great" at being human.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

At this time I can tell you that the Brits definitely didn’t have a culture of failure. 33:15 Thank you to Detroit Venture Partners for supporting the show. 49:30 Steve: When’s the last time venture capital actually led an innovation? I remember this lesson well. Everyone give them a big thanks @dvptweets.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

By definition, you read blogs. I was meeting regularly with entrepreneurs and offering (for better or for worse) advice on how to run a startup and how to raise venture capital from my experience in doing so at two companies. Or “I’m a new entrepreneur, why would I offer advice on how to run a startup?&#.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I’m no great scholar on bubbles – I have more interesting things to spend my time worrying about than the exact definition , but having been around a few I have at least given them intellectual consideration. In any given year there are about 50 venture-backed companies or so that are bought for $100 million or more.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Social Proof in Action … Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital. Sometimes these markets never appeal to “normals&# (Chris Dixon’s definition) and other times it needs to be more effectively marketed to normals.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But if you identify investors with whom you’d like to work here’s my advice: 1. Everyone has their own definition of momentum (user numbers, revenue, channel partners, biz dev deals, whatever). Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice. Maybe this CEO doesn’t see me as a great fit.

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startup VC advice entrepreneurs 360

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

It’s the one bit of advice I find myself giving most frequently these days, “raise money at the top end of normal.&#. Prices have definitely gone up in 2011 as depicted in the anecdotal chart below. So my advice: go ahead and ask for a valuation that 2 years ago wouldn’t have been likely. That’s fine.

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TechCrunch

JULY 14, 2021

Anyone , an audio app that’s building a ‘marketplace for advice’ one five-minute phone call at a time, is launching new versions of its iOS and Android apps today* and beginning to large-scale onboarding after operating in a limited closed beta for the past six months. It’s one-to-one only.

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advice networking sustainability communities 99

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MAY 28, 2021

During an online business workshop in December 2020, the presenter asked me whether our venture was a hobby or a business. There’s no need for long-term strategy or a plan for growth because there’s no risk if your venture fails to attract clients. Being a solopreneur, by definition, means going it alone.

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entrepreneurs strategy sustainability finance 306

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

“Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator. So what are you waiting for?

strategy 293

strategy venture capital SaaS investing 293

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

And when asked about the topic, I definitely don’t shy away from the topic as you can see in this 8-minute YouTube interview that Pemo Theodore asked me to do on the subject of Women in Entrepreneurship. In my post on what has changed the venture capital industry more than any other factor I talked about Amazon.com’s role.

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entrepreneurs entrepreneurship VC pitching 341

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

But if that’s all that they’re after then entrepreneurs should definitely be wary of taking these calls. They are at the tops of their classes and want to get into private equity or venture capital some day. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice. I have nothing against these young people – the dialers.

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VC entrepreneurs advice investing 294

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 2, 2012

As I was biking around the other day, I realized that they have a lot in common and so the advice I have to give about both is pretty similar: 1. If you're going to start a company instead of working for someone else, you're definitely putting something at risk--current income, opportunity cost, some social capital perhaps.

entrepreneurs 320

entrepreneurs advice accelerator media 320

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 3, 2012

For a solid six or seven minutes, I was pretty pissed at Fred Wilson for his last post on the age of venture capitalists. Age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc are all topics that are deeply emotional for people--and, by definition, personal. he's only been in venture for two years and only through one market, an up one!"

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VC board venture capital ventures 261

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. That plus CallWave spawned companies such as RightScale , AppFolio and RingRevenue – all large, venture-backed companies now.

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communities startup venture capital capital 378

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “ when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two ” (e.g. VC funding is definitely back from the constipation that was 2009 replete with frothy valuations chasing dreams of the next Facebook, Groupon or Zynga. Tags: Startup Advice Tech Market Analysis. In the end.

entrepreneurs 298

entrepreneurs real estate VC advice 298

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 5, 2011

He was interested in venture capital and was a year away from graduation. I realized that a position at Union Square Ventures was going to be open in a year and that he had a terrific chance of getting it. He seemed perplexed that they'd even consider hiring someone out of school.

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Hunter Walk

JULY 18, 2022

As a result, there’s a lot of incentive to remain a ‘great’ company, which is still venture investable, versus falling into a trough of uncertainty. This is challenging but definitely not impossible. Fewer huge outcomes means less late stage private capital and continued power law returns among the best venture funds.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 8, 2022

In this instance, we failed to follow our own advice.”. “Said simply, investing in every round for every YC company requires more capital than we want to raise and manage. We always tell startups to stay small and manage their budgets carefully.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

MAY 1, 2024

shared his experience around starting a business, the effects it had on his mental health and his advice on taking care of yourself and your business. Of course there are moments of self-doubt, especially when venturing into uncomfortable initiatives. Loneliness is definitely a reality in entrepreneurship.

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health entrepreneurship entrepreneurial ecosystem entrepreneurs 194

Hunter Walk

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

As Our Colleague Kate Stern Departs Homebrew To Go Back to Company Building, Here’s Her Advice. I’d been at Uber for almost five years and it was so comfortable — any new role would have felt like a big change for me, but moving into the venture world felt particularly intimidating. Thinking back…. Normal first day nerves!

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venture capital ventures capital advice 94

David Teten VC

JUNE 9, 2021

Would you like to work with private equity and venture capital funds? There are relatively few jobs directly inside private equity and venture capital funds, and those jobs are highly competitive. Venture capitalists often come from an operating background. Venture Capital. Asian Venture Capital Journal (free trial).

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