Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series about Raising Venture Capital. A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding. If the large VC doesn’t agree to do your A round then you’re in a bit of trouble. If a VC term sheet comes in they begin their due diligence process. What gives?

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? By definition?—?I’m How our VC Firms Like Ours Organizing to Meet the Challenges?

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund. VC Financings: 1. I keep meaning to get him drunk to spill the stories.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

*. What is the role of a VC for entrepreneurs? I suppose it can be different for every founder and for different VCs but I’d like to offer you some context on what I think it is and it isn’t. They are unique to you and not to each other situation that VC has faced. ” I responded. Your decisions are unknowable.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

If you want a very quick primer on all the stuff nobody ever tells you about raising venture capital check out this video where Mark Jeffrey & I break it down on This Week in VC. All of this is covered in more detail on the TWiVC video above (and much of it is covered in text on this blog on the “ Raising VC &# tab).

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AUGUST 8, 2011

How about as a VC? Fred has basically always been a VC, Mike was a reporter, and Jim worked in product marketing and management consulting. Surely--but then I realize how difficult it is to be an early stage VC in NYC. Really never managed anything of significant or built anything major.". what has this guy done? What did I do?

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I believe these VC funds have suffered some amount of reputation fall out. Why are VC’s really doing seed deals?

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. You’d be surprised how many firms are “dictator VCs” – even those that don’t formally acknowledge it internally. ” Some firms are collegiate.

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DECEMBER 21, 2012

It took almost two years for the company to raise their first outside capital from RTP and Greycroft--and honestly, my bad for not staying close to the company. It would be over two years until he took his first round of capital earlier in 2012. Three companies most definitely makes a pattern. I'm impressed.

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Gust

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Marc Andreessen kicked off another great debate on Twitter last night, one that I’ve been talking about incessantly in private circles for the past 2-3 years – what actually IS the definition of a seed vs. A-round. My view: “Spending any time or energy trying to game the ‘definition’ of your round of fund raising is a total waste.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

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. “Why do founders want to take the VCs’ money? .” ” This is a frequent theme of mine when asked to speak to audience about the VC industry.

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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. VCs have different views and strategies on this.

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APRIL 3, 2012

Age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc are all topics that are deeply emotional for people--and, by definition, personal. Of course, you don't always need that experience from a VC. If you make a comment about age, it will always be taken in the context of how old you are versus how old your audience is.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Any VC will tell you that the ones they said yes to, they mostly got there right away—and that there are very few “maybe” deals that get tipped over the fence. Or that venture capital is a meritocracy? We know what the racial and gender wealth disparity looks like: This is a lesson taught to be by Jewel from Collab Capital.

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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

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” But Jason is one of the smartest thinkers in our industry so while style points in his eye-poking post might be low, he’s definitely scratching at something important. Bowery Capital).

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APRIL 14, 2014

Most companies don''t ever raise venture capital and they do just fine. That''s a much better picture of female entrepreneurship than the 2-4% of venture capital dollars going to women. The main driver of the skew towards men getting venture capital, statistically, is that far more men are pitching.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

When this first ran on TechCrunch I got the greatest comment in the world that I had to repeat here, “VC’s are like martinis: the first is good, the second one great, and the third is a headache.&# I understand the appeal of having many VC firms on your cap table. In my second company I had only 1 investor. I love that.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2012

I’ve been meeting with LPs (those who invest in VC funds) over the past year and discussing trends I see in the market and where I think we need to be as a firm to be near to and meet the needs of our customers. I think NY has always – by definition – been urban. And with startups so go VCs.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 23, 2021

He leads the group’s venture capital fund, Seedstars International, which invests in seed-stage startups across emerging markets. Even after the unprecedented year that we had in 2020, the VC markets picked up in 2021 and founders raised 157% more capital in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the previous year. Contributor.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. The VC industry is segmenting – I have spoken about this many times before. So in the past we needed VC to really get a startup going. Answer: Not much.

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AUGUST 25, 2023

That includes investing way earlier than they would normally, investing outside of scope, investing with their personal capital outside of the fund, etc. Does the VC think that a designer needs to be on the team from day one if you’re going to build a better version of Instagram? Let’s first talk about the definition of a co-founder.

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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.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Since then, I’ve founded several startups, was employee #3 at a $65m VC firm in San Francisco, and realized that there is a similar phenomenon to what Robert Kiyosaki is talking about in Rich Dad, Poor Dad currently occurring in Silicon Valley. Wealth My definition of rich is having a passive income that’s greater than your burn.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. I said that I felt that Micro-VCs were the most important change in our industry. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs. source: Capital IQ.

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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. Local Capital – I do believe that you’ll struggle to get a community started without some local capital.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

Cincinnati, like many startup communities in the US over the past 5 years, has revitalized important regions in its urban core, created accelerators, built co-working facilities, pooled together angel capital, attracted VCs, involved educational institutions and solicited the help of important corporations in a more cohesive ecosystem.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. Everyone has their own definition of momentum (user numbers, revenue, channel partners, biz dev deals, whatever).

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startup VC advice entrepreneurs 360

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. I think this is a Seriously great example of how this process works for at least one VC – Upfront Ventures. So this was definitely an introduction I was going to take. Domain Knowledge.

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MARCH 25, 2013

It's even more relevant now that I've started the first venture capital fund in Brooklyn-- Brooklyn Bridge Ventures --and invested in four Brooklyn based companies. The definitive article about 33 Flatbush--the kind of commercial building you would drive by a million times without thinking twice-- was written in the NY Times a few years ago.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

I heard Bruce Dunlevie of Benchmark Capital say these words at a conference in London nearly 10 years ago. 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. I’ve been a VC for 2.5

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

I guess this is the ultimate definition of implementing a business model when you’re not clear on strategy! I see many companies these days just race to raise capital. They see capital raising at the success validator. If it’s the former your company will definitely start to top out at some point.

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Dream It

AUGUST 29, 2019

But this topic is always in the back of mind for VCs and other investors, so it’s important to formulate a plan around the topic, even if those exit strategies might change as you grow your startup. Investors are giving you capital to make 10x, 20x, or 100x their investment. To realize this, there must be an exit.

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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. But it’s not cutting VCs out. It is additive.

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JUNE 5, 2016

Just don't go picking someone who really doesn't compliment you just because it's some kind of VC rule. I've heard a lot of VCs tell founders they need co-founders--and that they wouldn't look at a business at a very early stage without a co-founder. The same holds true for VC funds.

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 11, 2011

A few other VCs had been blogging before, but no one had gone as far as to make the whole front facing effort of their firm into something so interactive. So why wouldn't each of these companies have outward facing pages describing how to work with them--just like VCs do? It changed the way we worked with entrepreneurs.

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innovation media development technology 279

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 11, 2014

It''s a solid exit to a company that has lots of revs, is growing, and together will form a very formidable player in the data backup space--one that can definitely be a public company in the next couple of years. Venture Capital & Technology'

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