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The Pre-Board Board: How to Create Accountability Before You Give Away a Board Seat

This is going to be BIG.

Typically, investors don’t take a board seat until you raise your first equity round—which means that it could be *years* before you have a real board meeting: A year of nights/weekends work researching, prototyping, and fundraising. Many people extend this round and don’t get there for two years. How many is too many, for example?

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Board Diversity

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

The board diversity problem is a symptom of a much broader problem around lack of diversity in founders that get funded and lack of diversity in VC firms. Most startup boards are made up of a few founders and a few VCs. No wonder you have no diversity on the board. Boards don’t need three or four VCs on them.

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Venture Capital is About Human Capital

Both Sides of the Table

Fundamentally venture capital is about human capital. The existing Invoca team has been in place and functioning incredibly well the last few years and I’m so honored that Gregg has decided to come on board and help lead us to the next level. It’s the founders who are willing to let you join their boards. Nothing fancier.

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Why being a VC sucks. Advice to anyone who wants to get into venture capital.

This is going to be BIG.

I probably get around a dozen e-mails a week asking me how to get into venture capital. On top of that, anytime I talk to anyone who wants to get involved in startups but isn''t sure what they want to do, inevitably, I hear, "And then I was thinking maybe I should look into venture capital, too.". You can''t crowdfund a fund.

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Lessons from a Diverse Venture Capital Portfolio

This is going to be BIG.

The diversity is the direct result of our mission—to build the most accessible venture capital fund in NY. When you conflate hyperbole for ambition and realism for lack of aggressiveness, you will ultimately wind up shutting out a lot of groups from the game of risk seeking capital and opportunity. I don’t require warm intros.

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Bolster Your Management Team And Board

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Bolster came out of stealth and into a beta period today and is opening up its marketplace to companies that want to access fractional talent and to executives who want to work at high growth companies in interim, fractional, advisory, or board roles.

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Who Should be on Your Startup Board?

Both Sides of the Table

One of the things that founders have the most angst about is whom they should have on their board and at what stage of the business. This is smart because amazing board members can be transformative with important advice and access and can also help attract other great board members (and team members).

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