Both Sides of the Table
JULY 22, 2010
Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. It was accept the terms or go into bankruptcy so we took the money.
This is going to be BIG.
JULY 8, 2010
Fast Company wants to know who has the most online influence. They’re trying to measure it using a big social media ponzi scheme where you get a unique link that you get others to click using all your various social profiles. The more clicks you can garner, the more influence you have. Therefore, the person who not only has the most time to waste and can also waste the most collective time of others gets to be featured in their magazine.
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Berkonomics
JULY 3, 2010
Business coaches come in all sizes and shapes. You’ll have a relative willing to devote time, a school friend with business experience, professionals who charge for the service, investors with a reason to promote your success and more. But by far the best coaches are those that have lived through the process you’re going through and built successful enterprises in your same industry.
For Entrepreneurs
JULY 15, 2010
Almost every sales and marketing funnel has blockage points where the conversion rates are lower than hoped, or the process cannot be scaled. This blog post talks about how to solve those blockage points using an intense study of the customer's concerns, and brainstorming to see what motivations can be used to over come the friction that comes from these concerns.
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abovethecrowd.com
JULY 15, 2010
Last night, Google reported financial results for the second quarter of 2010. While revenue growth was up 24% year over year, revenue was fairly flat compared with Q1 of 2010. Moreover, earnings fell short of average street estimates sending Google down $20 per share (4%) in the aftermarket. Based on current estimates (which might change [.].
Startup Catalyst Brief brings together the best content for the entrepreneurial ecosystem from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 11, 2010
[if you're not old enough to get the reference between this image and the title you can click on the image for a prompter]. This past December I spent a week in Boston to try to get to know some of the local VC’s and entrepreneurs a bit better. One of the meetings I had (organized by my good friend Jeff Yolen ) was with New Atlantic Ventures held the at the CIC, aka the Cambridge Innovation Center (no prizes for guessing where it’s located).
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 25, 2010
I recently read a book I’d highly recommend to every reader of this blog called “ Yes, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive &# by Robert B. Cialdini who is also author of a very well received book called “ Influence &# (which I plan to read). “Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is fille
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 1, 2010
I think I’ve now mastered how to make images clickable so in the future you *should* always be able to click on the TWiVC image above and go directly to the video. Just in case here’s the link to this week’s episode. Our guest this week was Scott Painter. Scott is the kind of guy you could just grab a drink with, sit back and listen to him tell stories for hours.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 13, 2010
For the first 5 years of my career I was a “bottom up&# thinker and worker. I assembled tons of data, grouped things, found results and drew conclusions. It was difficult to make the transition to a “top down&# thinker but as a senior executive – and as an entrepreneur – you’re far less effective without this skill in your arsenal.
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Both Sides of the Table
JULY 1, 2010
We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I’m not a big believer in too much hierarchy. A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 26, 2010
Social Proof in Action … Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital. If you didn’t read that yet it might be worth having a quick skim as a primer. Social proof is defined as “looking for others to guide our decisions&# and is also one of the most important techniques in acquiring customers in your company.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 29, 2010
We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. We will continue to do more of this. If you want to watch the show click the image above or this link , but if you want a quick read – here’s a summary: 1.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 10, 2010
This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. If you don’t know Montgomery & Co it is one of the premier technology & media focused investment banks in the country (and as Michael corrected me they also have a strong Healthcare / Med tech practice). For entrepreneurs who want to learn about how to work with investment banks, how to position yourself to be acquired and what the IPO markets look like this is the episode to
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Both Sides of the Table
JULY 15, 2010
We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. If you enjoy this blog I think you’ll enjoy watching the first 14 minutes of this video (just click on the image of me below). Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall.
This is going to be BIG.
JULY 29, 2010
Have you ever had to get creative copy approved by a client? It takes forever and everyone and their mother has an opinion on it. That’s why I think that more so than even doubling Old Spice’s revenues for the month, the most impressive and notable thing about the campaign was the speed of the creative from user tweet to Old Spice guy response. Creating so many public videos that answered user responses in such a short time was the work of an extremely streamlined creative process—one that other
This is going to be BIG.
JULY 29, 2010
" So we’ve said a few things now: That business-services operate pricing models which do not represent costs but investments, and are viewed as such. That consumption-services (which either aid or directly represent consumption) operate pricing models which represent real costs. That investing in order to generate profit on that investment is popular, and spending money on direct consumption is increasingly not.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 19, 2010
Startups are hard. When you read the press you only read the glamorous bits. You read about Mark Zuckerberg or the guys at FourSquare, Twitter or Zynga. But that’s a bit like reading about your state lottery winner and feeling bummed out because you haven’t won despite years of trying. The reality is that most of you will never hit it BIG yet you’ll lead fulfilled and productive lives.
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This is going to be BIG.
JULY 26, 2010
The other day, Josh and I met with a very cool company that has some serious traction. They’re more than doubling revenue every quarter and will soon be on track for a million dollar run rate. The only concern was that they didn’t know what their cost of customer acquisition was, nor did they which channels would be most effective, or how much they could acquire out of each channel.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 20, 2010
Yesterday I wrote about the importance of choosing happiness. Today I want to write about a related topic: not taking the little things in life for granted. I promise not to turn this blog into a personal self-help blog! But today is a special day and I’m thinking about this topic so please humor me just one more time. More later in the post.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 14, 2010
Yesterday I wrote a post about top-down versus bottom-up thinking. There is a corollary to that advice, which is “doing the right things is more important than doing things right.&# Sounds simple but in practice I promise you most organization fall into the latter trap. Here’s how it goes: You have a business development group with two people.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 12, 2010
There’s a famous line about consultants that clients love to repeat, “consultants take your watch and then tell you the time.&#. I suppose there’s some truth to that but of course it’s an over simplification. I used to work for Andersen Consulting (for > 8 years) – mostly building computer systems for large companies in the fixed telecoms, mobile and Internet sectors.
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This is going to be BIG.
JULY 20, 2010
My take on why the game dynamics help Foursquare solve the problem of critical mass among one’s social network: The bleeding edge users within any given social graph will normally encounter a scarcity of other users on any given social network. This makes said social network much less useful. Foursquare provides game dynamics that enable a single user value proposition—it does something for you even if you’re the only one on it.
Berkonomics
JULY 19, 2010
Once a company founder has tapped the funds available from his or her resources and from friends and family, if the company needs more cash for growth, the most obvious next step is to look for money from angel investors and venture capitalists, typically in the $300,000 TO $3,000,000 range. This money comes with restrictions a founder may not expect, including restrictions upon the sale of founder stock, clauses that require the investor be allowed to sell an equal proportion of stoc
This is going to be BIG.
JULY 13, 2010
Back in March of 2006, nextNY held it's second social gathering--that time it was at Dewey's Flatiron. This guy comes up to me and says he works at a company called Squarespace. I had heard of it--they were big buyers of Google Adwords and I felt like I had checked out the site before. It seemed like a pretty comprehensive publishing tool. I asked him how many people he had working with him.
This is going to be BIG.
JULY 9, 2010
Matthew Ingram asked the question today of whether or not people should start an e-mail newsletter. At the same time, two of the most awesome people I know, Mike Galpert and Amanda Peyton , are using Sam Lessin’s letter.ly to create paid e-mail newsletters—effectively nailing the coffin on what were sometimes sparsely updated blogs. I get it. I get why people like Jason Calacanis wanted to stop blogging (even though he really can’t).
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