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Choose Your VC Investor Carefully

Both Sides of the Table

Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings). I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. I guarantee this is a bad VC. There are many great VCs.

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A Tale of Two Pitches

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC.&#. I recently wrote a blog post here in which I argued that the best VC meetings are discussions and not sales pitches. Many people agreed and added that even the best sales meetings are also discussions and not pitches. A Tale of Two Pitches.

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Talking to a VC About Your Competitors

Both Sides of the Table

With VCs my strong suggestion is that you be open & realistic. Leaving your real competitors off of you presentation to a VC is not recommended. Think back to the slides in the VC deck where you define the customer problem you’re solving and what your solution does. Two-by-two matrix. “Our competition sucks&#.

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Who the hell is this guy? Thoughts on being a career VC

This is going to be BIG.

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?

VC 275
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A Tale of Two Fundraising Stories

This is going to be BIG.

The first pitch I got was from someone who didn''t intend on staying with the business as an employee. Everyone I''ve ever gotten pitched from can''t wait to quit their other jobs to work on what''s being pitched. Hiring a consultant who always intends to be a consultant isn''t a failure.

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Three Words Entrepreneurs (and VC’s) Should Take to Heart

Both Sides of the Table

” I said I learned this 15 years ago because that is when I stopped being a consultant. I enjoyed the first half of my time at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) because I was a computer programmer and had to build stuff that actually worked. Consultants spend all of their time pretending to know these answers.

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Out There Bets and Insider Games: The Social Barriers to Funding Big Ideas

This is going to be BIG.

Below is a link to the pitch video. There wasn’t any context around it—not exactly something I’d call a “pitch”. I explained that this wasn’t really a pitch because it lacked all sorts of context. He went off to go recruit a team of aviation experts—people who had consulted on and built serious vehicles and projects.

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