December, 2019

article thumbnail

Why You Don't Get Real Feedback from VCs--and a Solution

This is going to be BIG.

If there’s any one thing I’ve focused on in my VC career, it’s trying to give real, actionable feedback to founders. I’ve made a bet that if a founder pitches me, whether or not I fund them, if I make the process worthwhile by telling them exactly why I couldn’t get there, they’re likely to recommend that other founders do the same. The risk is that if I give a definitive “no”, then if they pivot, or figure out something else, or if they get more traction than I expect because I was flat out wro

pitching 170
article thumbnail

Innovation in Sustainability: From Trash to Textiles

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Monique Maissan is an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member in Shanghai, CEO of Vision Textiles, and founder of Waste2Weave. Monique has been a pioneer in sustainability in the notoriously environmentally unfriendly textile and fashion industry for more than 20 years. We asked Monique about her journey with sustainability and the challenges she’s experienced.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Advice from an entrepreneurship expert, with Professor Michael Goldberg

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

The YLAI Network hosted Michael Goldberg , a professor of entrepreneurship and an expert in international business development, for a Facebook chat in November for Global Entrepreneurship Week. Michael answered questions from network members requesting advice for their entrepreneurial endeavors. Many themes came up, such as overcoming issues with funding, navigating unstable governments, expanding your business, and dealing with competition.

advice 240
article thumbnail

Grinding

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

It is tempting to search for the one magic move that will make everything better. A new VP of Sales. A new database layer in your tech stack. A new brand for your company. Moving everything to the cloud. More capital in the business. But it is rarely one thing that a business needs to succeed. It is often a little bit of everything. Back in the early days of Twitter, we could not keep the website and API up.

capital 260
article thumbnail

15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

article thumbnail

grant money and contracts: which is right for your venture?

Venture Well

Grant money and contracts can offer early-stage innovators with many benefits, but how do you determine which funding source is right for your venture? The post grant money and contracts: which is right for your venture? appeared first on VentureWell.

ventures 208

More Trending

article thumbnail

Why Entrepreneurs Must Harness the Power of Sleep

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Contributed by Giles Watkins, coach, mentor and author of Positive Sleep: A Holistic Approach To Resolve Sleep Issues and Transform Your Life. . The words “sleep” and “entrepreneur” may seem like strange bedfellows unless you are running a start-up in areas such as making mattresses or developing a new Sleep app. However sleep is a wonderful, natural and free resource that anyone starting or running a business must draw on optimally to be the best they can be for their cu

article thumbnail

The Future of Startup Ecosystems Across the Globe

500

The idea of being a founder has never been so popular around the world, so how is that going to change industries and entire regions? This year we dove headfirst into the rise of corporate venture capital, the changing nature of venture capital education, and the important task of startup ecosystem building. Fast Growing Corporate Venture Capital With headlines from Softbank, Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and more, corporate venture capital is growing faster than ever.

article thumbnail

Advancing social and environmental change in Argentina

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

Entrepreneurship can empower individuals and communities limited in resources. Someone with a good entrepreneurial spirit will look for ways to improve a community and its integrity through its businesses and missions. 2018 YLAI Fellow Marcos Heyd is a great example of someone with a good entrepreneurial spirit. He is the founder of La Escombrera, the founder of Surcos Argentinos and the co-founder of Digital Footprint.

article thumbnail

What Happened In The 2010s

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

My friend Steve Kane suggested I take a longer view in my pair of year end posts this year: What, no decade end/decade ahead posts? — Steven Kane (@stevenkane) December 26, 2019. And so I will. Here are the big things that happened in tech, startups, business, and more in the decade that is ending today, in no particular order of importance. 1/ The emergence of the big four web/mobile monopolies; Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

article thumbnail

How Top Tech CFOs Solve Annual Planning’s Biggest Challenges

Gearing up for 2025 annual planning? Our latest eBook from the Operators Guild is your ultimate guide. Discover real-world solutions and best practices shared by top CFOs, drawn directly from discussions within OG’s vibrant online community. Learn from senior executives at high-growth tech startups as they outline financial planning strategies, align CEO and board goals, and coordinate budgets across departments.

article thumbnail

NeuroFlow Closes $7.5M Series A Financing to Advance Behavioral Health Integration and Engagement

Dream It

NeuroFlow ( Healthtech - Fall 2019 ) is a platform for getting patients with behavioral health issues better by supporting clinical teams with collaborative and measurement-based tools in all care settings. This week, the company announced a $7.5 million Series A financing round led by San Francisco-based Builders VC. Also participating in the round are Dreamit Ventures , Spring Point Partners, Red & Blue Ventures, and AWT Private Investments.

health 195
article thumbnail

Teaching Green: Integrating Sustainability Principles into I&E Curriculum

Venture Well

Jeremy Faludi's Tools for Design and Sustainability includes a guide to teaching green principles in innovation and entrepreneurship courses. The post Teaching Green: Integrating Sustainability Principles into I&E Curriculum appeared first on VentureWell.

article thumbnail

The Curse That Causes Promotions to Fail

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Written for EO by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, disaster avoidance expert , speaker and author. . It’s tragically common for people in organizations to be promoted up the hierarchy to their “level of incompetence,” a concept in management known as the Peter Principle. They are promoted because they did well in their previous job, not based on their potential to meet the needs of the new position into which they are placed, even when the new role requires a wholly different set of skills.

article thumbnail

The Value of the 500 Seed Accelerator in 2019

500

Going into 2020, 500 will be entering it’s tenth year of operation. It’s been a crazy journey for us from a small first batch of startups in our Silicon Valley Accelerator to running accelerators across the globe and investing in founders from over 76 countries. While we have undoubtedly matured as a company, we continue to strive to make our Seed Accelerator one of the top programs to support founders and help them build companies at-scale.

article thumbnail

Your Fractional Finance and Accounting Team

Mighty Financial specializes in supporting the financial aspirations of small businesses and entrepreneurs. With our comprehensive bookkeeping and precise accounting expertise with decades of experience across diverse financial roles, our team offers tailor-made services ranging from essential bookkeeping to strategic fractional CFO support, catered specifically to the unique challenges of technology companies, startups, and SMEs.

article thumbnail

Simple ways to fight corruption

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

Every year, more than $3 trillion is paid in bribes or is stolen by corrupt officials. If that doesn’t affect you, it may affect someone you know. What is corruption? Corruption is the abuse of office for personal gain, and it takes many forms. It’s the politician taking a bribe before awarding a building contract to the briber. It’s the city council member paying for his family vacation with public funds.

education 230
article thumbnail

How to Apply the 3 P's to Selecting Angel Investments

The Seraf Compass

The first approach we recommend for selecting investable companies is to screen each company by examining the Team, Market Opportunity and Product. That’s a great way to sift through hundreds of companies to find the few diamonds in the rough. But for serious angels with more solid prospects than they can possibly invest in, a second filter is needed.

article thumbnail

Will WeWork finally put our image of a "backable" founder to rest?

This is going to be BIG.

There’s one thing that no one can ever take away from Adam Neumann—he was world class at fundraising. His ability to tell a story and gain investor confidence was unmatched relative to the underlying progress of the company. He exuded confidence told people he was going to change the world. It’s not actually surprising that investors bought into it, considering that for a long time, VCs have focused on one particular archtype of leader as being more worthy of venture investment than others—the b

founder 170
article thumbnail

Avoiding 5 Common Cyber Entrepreneur Pitfalls

Dream It

Avoiding 5 Common Cyber Entrepreneur Pitfalls In this #DreamitLive, Ron Gula , president of Gula Tech Ventures , joins Steve Barsh to talk about the 5 most common mistakes cyber entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them. Ron was co-founder and CEO of Tenable where he grew revenue to $100m, customers to 20k, and raised $300m in venture capital. He has invested in dozens of cyber start-ups and supported multiple cyber funds.

article thumbnail

Digitalization: 5 Tech Updates That Will Help You Survive The Recession & Thrive

Lack of digitalization decreases business competitiveness. To thrive, embracing modern solutions becomes essential. The approach to digitalization often aligns with a company's business model. This shift not only boosts productivity but also automates processes and improves security. The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.

article thumbnail

The Secret to Feeling Confident

Entrepreneurs' Organization

By Miranda Naiman , accidental entrepreneur, motivational speaker, member of the EO Tanzania chapter and founder of Empower , a Tanzanian human capital consultancy firm. Being successful in life requires confidence. Succeeding as an entrepreneur takes confidence. How do we fuel the confidence that’s so essential to achieving our goals? Are we born with an inherent capacity for confidence or uncertainty?

article thumbnail

¡Hola Batch 11 LatAm! These are the 9 Startups Joining our Latest Batch in Mexico City

500

500 Startups is excited to announce the latest batch from our Seed Accelerator based in Mexico City. The Mexico City program focuses on providing mentorship and guidance to foster fast-paced growth for Spanish-speaking, early-stage companies based in Latin America. For this batch, our team assessed 1706 applications to participate in the acceleration program.

article thumbnail

Conscious fashion promotes traditional Panamanian artisans

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

By Elise Kemp. Growing up, Nayleen Quintero was surrounded and nurtured by Panamanian folklore. Nayleen, a 2017 YLAI fellow, is from a small rural village in the province of Los Santos, Panama. She was raised with a love for her cultural heritage, appreciating the charming indigenous traditions and the beautiful artwork. As her passion for marketing and design grew, so did her dreams to bring the Santeña tradition to life.

culture 246
article thumbnail

2019: An Innovative Year in Review

UBI Global

Journey through the 2019 global innovation community activities with UBI Global Join us as we present the 2019 year in review and examine the impactful collaborations that took place through business incubator and accelerator programs and their startup clients. This article covers the biggest disruptions in the global innovation landscape, the UBI Global member programs […].

article thumbnail

PE Mastery: CAPTARGET's Playbook for Quality Lead Flow

CAPTARGET presents a masterclass in M&A deal sourcing. Learn to cast a wide net, embracing seller self-identification. Consistency is the linchpin: keep the origination process steady for a reliable flow of opportunities. Diversify your tactics, employing various tools and vendors. Tech matters! Understand DNS settings, domain authority, and brand presence for optimal outreach.

article thumbnail

perfecting surgical simulations: q&A with hannah eherenfeldt from e-team, ReSuture

Venture Well

ReSuture is developing a material for use in surgical simulations for future surgeons to learn complex procedures before operating on a patient. . The post perfecting surgical simulations: q&A with hannah eherenfeldt from e-team, ReSuture appeared first on VentureWell.

article thumbnail

RaySecur Closes $3M Seed Funding Round

Dream It

RaySecur ( Dreamit Securetech Spring 2019) closed a $3M seed funding round. The startup’s mission is to be the first line of defense to safely detect suspicious powders and liquids, as well as conventional mail threats. RaySecur’s technology can detect such threats in extremely small quantities, even as small as 2% of a teaspoon. According to RaySecur’s Threat Center Data, 10 times a day somebody sends a suspicious powder, liquid, or other hazard via the U.S. mail.

strategy 195
article thumbnail

Cassandra Bailey Launches Children’s Book Series Talking About Mom’s Job

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Cassandra Bailey, CEO of Slice Communications , is one of the millions of entrepreneurs in the world who are also mothers. Additionally, Bailey is the author of a new series of children’s books about women just like her. The “My Mom Is…” book series offers moms from all industries a child-friendly way to discuss why they work, what they love about your jobs, and why it matters.

article thumbnail

500’s Past & Present: Betting on International Startups

500

In 2010, 500 Startups started as a new kind of venture capital firm in Silicon Valley with a contrarian belief that talent can come from anywhere in the world. Back then, very few venture capital firms in the valley were focused on much outside of our collection of cities within the San Francisco Bay area. ”If you look at our early team, our DNA has always been very global with experience growing up abroad or working internationally.

startup 205
article thumbnail

How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr