Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We have global opportunities from these trends but of course also big challenges. I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. even before the pandemic itself has been fully tamed.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. What Did I Learn From the First VC Check I Ever Wrote?

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 29, 2011

Then I realized that it's probably not obvious what the dynamics are around how VCs tend to get introduced to companies and what works best for people, so I figured I'd blog about it. A lot of VCs ask to be introduced through someone. Talking to a VC is never a one shot deal. The Cold Intro. Multiple Touchpoints.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca For the first 5 years or so after I became a VC I didn’t talk much about what I thought a VC should be excellent at since frankly I wasn’t sure. It’s easy to think the role of a VC is to have strong opinions about markets, trends, tech dynamics and so forth. The role of VC is sparring partner.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2014

These are things that other VCs think about, but founders who come to pitch don''t think about too much. as a VC, sometimes your own website becomes an afterthought. That''s also why I''m finally launching a real website at brooklynbridge.vc. When you blog, tweet , Instagram , etc., So there ya go.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 19, 2021

There are a few opportunities to address this issue. I also think startup boards need to evolve. There should be many more independent directors and many fewer investor directors on startup boards. Investors should be more open to observer seats and founders should have more say in which investors sit on their boards.

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Berkonomics

MARCH 28, 2024

All other board functions are secondary. Even venture capitalists who sit on boards where they have significant investments often forget this point. Actually, there are two legal duties of board members. Sometimes, there will be a conflict of interest between the people representing the various shareholder classes on a board.

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board advice education VC 112

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 29, 2011

She expounded on the completely missed opportunity to combine offline and online direct selling into a singular complementary vision. Yet, I wondered whether or not she had accidently met with the wrong VC. Chantel has been amazing to work with, as has my fellow board member Ann Miura-Ko from Floodgate.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

For most of my career as a VC, the IPO has been the holy grail. Our very best portfolio companies would be offered an opportunity to go public by the top investment banks on wall street. I don’t take as much offense to this situation as others in the VC business have. On the left has come direct listings. We will see.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. I have sat on a board with Howard and have known him a few years. It is clear that he is simply passionate about being a VC and participating in this industry.

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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? And having too much money certainly raises board expectations that you will do big things quickly.

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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. And he followed through. So he had had a taste of it.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 5, 2014

But as I rose in my career (and post MBA) I moved into a role in which I was to advise board-level executives on topics where I was expected to rapidly become an expert. In my experience many VC’s fall into this “I’m expected to know all the answers” trap. We are their sparring partners, their sounding boards.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , the pre-seed and seed stage VC fund I run in NYC, has invested in 64 companies in the last six and a half years. 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.

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venture capital capital ventures peer-to-peer 413

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 29, 2012

Being a good angel or VC has a lot to do with pattern matching. You're going to want syndication partners on the deals you find and sounding boards on the thesis behind each of your potential investments. Early stage finds give you the opportunity to get exposure to the asset class without putting all your eggs in one basket.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Our founder, Yves Sisteron, was my mentor and board member at my first startup. My other partner, Steven Dietz, was on the board of my second company. Stuart is well worth following on Twitter & now that’s he’s a VC he is likely to share his wisdom more freely. Mafias matter a lot to me, as well.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

One of the main co-investors was High Peaks capital and one of their team members, the uber talented Rahul Gandhi , loved the deal so much he quit his career as a VC and jumped in as a co-founder. I guess he was as excited about the opportunity as I was! And for the next several months the founders literally ran the business.

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real estate ventures innovation pitching 380

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

There is a second set of career discussions I have even more frequently than my “angel yourself” advice but this type is almost never discussed publicly in blogs, which tend to emphasize only billion-dollar opportunities, 20-something technical founders and Silicon Valley elitism. Being a CEO begets the network to be a CEO.

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advice peer-to-peer VC board 334

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 5, 2014

If you need to introduce yourself to a VC firm, you''re probably not getting the job. The opportunities, however, are different than they used to be. VC firms are going back to being mostly partner driven shops, where dealflow and decisions stay up top. That''s a benefit to the VC firm.

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venture capital capital ventures peer-to-peer 302

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. One day if you’re lucky you’ll be big enough to work with recruiters to hire senior members of your team or your board. And in it he profiles the work of Coach Campbell who was once on the boards of both Google & Apple. EXECUTIVE RECRUITERS.

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startup real estate VC venture capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

The opportunity came up to invest in this one and I pounced. When I started blogging as a VC I had zero idea it would lead to my current audience level of 350,000 page views / month. On a Thursday night we had our team dinner & I thought the management team was convinced that as an LA-based VC we would work actively with them.

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investing investment VC board 310

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 16, 2011

It’s easy to think that the wife of a well-known & successful VC ( Fred Wilson ) would have had an easy and storied life of wealth and privilege. I had previously had the opportunity to spend time with Joanne Wilson , Fred’s wife, and knew otherwise. The Internet really re-connected Joanne with her former working self.

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startup VC communities board 311

TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

David Teten is founder of Versatile VC and writes periodically at teten.com and @dteten. Akshat Dixit is a senior at North Carolina State University, an intern at Versatile VC , and a past intern with the HBS Alumni Angels Association and the Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Scouts help promote diversity in VC.

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VC peer-to-peer consulting board 93

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 25, 2015

The reason I’m thinking about the topic this morning is that several months ago Jason Spievak , the Founder & CEO of Invoca , the very first company I backed when I became a VC, started talking with me about whether he was the right guy to take the company to the next level. So we as a board kicked off a search for the next CEO.

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leadership SaaS board education 327

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

As an alternative I’ve also found board meetings to be a good rallying call. It gives a tangible goal and also the reward of the team that completes the project the opportunity to interact with the board.

creativity 344

creativity leadership board energy 344

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

What I’ve been trying to do is to actually describe the level at which “top performance” is happening for all of the various facets of the job—things like reputation, screening, board participation, etc. Is the Midas List the be-all and end-all of the “best VC” list? So I asked them. No, of course not.

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pitching peer-to-peer board VC 243

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.

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VC peer-to-peer investing investment 292

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

I got three calls from another big name, big check VC. VCs will spend over a year networking just to position around one founder or one deal, and if they lose it, it’s gone.” I work on relationships for years and wait patiently for the opportunity to potentially work together. Why am I so lucky? I’m not sucker.

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advice VC pitching investing 333

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

She worked for 5 years as a VC at Battery Ventures and co-headed M&A at IAC working with Barry Diller. In any job you either find leadership opportunities for your best people BEFORE they ask or other people start asking them to become leaders somewhere else. I promise you, he really said this out loud.) So why now?

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ventures leadership mentorship venture capital 361

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2017

Every new opportunity and every door opened is at the “top end of your funnel” meaning that may or may not come to fruition: A business development conversation, a first customer meeting, the first candidate in a recruiting process, the first time you talk with a journalist or the first meeting to consider your business strategy.

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 19, 2023

Stay tuned, and please feel free to share with anyone looking for a new opportunity! Landsman had been an independent Stash board member since mid-2022 and has previously served in operations and leadership roles at Jet.com, Citigroup, BlackRock and E-Trade. Collective raised its latest round , a Series A, in May 2021.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 6, 2023

Serial entrepreneur and seasoned investor Vinod Khosla has some strong, contrarian advice for the venture capital industry: don’t sit on your founders’ boards. I’m not a big fan of governance; I think if you engage as a team member with a founder, you have much more influence than if you’re sitting on a board and voting,” he said.

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board advice founder VC 100

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

That story actually begins about eleven or twelve years ago, with a little bit of VC mentoring. They said they trusted me and that they signed up for great opportunities in great startups, not just specifically tech. I'm also excited to have shared this opportunity with a fantastic syndicate of investors.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 18, 2022

This was another blockbuster year for global venture funding, with 2021 breaking records across the board. Beyond being awash in capital, the VC industry has also seen a historic number of exits. VCs are paying close attention to the opportunities that are materializing not just in Silicon Valley, but all over the world.

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VC venture capital board capital 91

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 4, 2018

My goal is to make Brooklyn Bridge Ventures the most accessible VC firm not just because I think it’s good business, but because I think it’s a based on good values. A co-op board is going to judge me at my next apartment. Quietly sticking to investing means wasting the opportunity to do good. In fact, I know it has.

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investing investment communities founder 294

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

When Roger Ehrenberg & I agreed to fund Nick’s first institutional VC round we agreed it knowing that he was staying in the UK, that he was building out product & engineering in the UK and that he was the CEO of the company. So Nick drove strategy & tech from the UK and remained an active board member and CTO of the company.

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founder leadership board innovation 309

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I need to take some VC meetings. But it did take Brad as a public spokesman, consummate networker and successful VC to help create legitimacy to let David’s ideas flourish. Not to mention they have the highest profile VC / blogger Fred Wilson of AVC. The ingredients are all here. Him: “I know, I know.

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