Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2013

I’m very excited to be finally be able to announce that this week we’ve added Sam Rosen to our ranks at GRP Partners in the role of entrepreneurs-in-residence – EIR. It’s the first EIR that we’ve had in the years that I’ve been with the firm and I hope will be the start of our investment in this program. And it’s the latest in a series of investments we’ve made in building out our practice as the LA technology market continues to grow robustly and

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pitching advice VC entrepreneurs 372

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 6, 2013

Ok, it's still resolution time, right? Time to get cracking on some new initiatives in 2013. and I can't argue strenously enough for investing the time into a blog this year if you've started a company. Forget the fact that you can't write or it takes a long time. These are things that go away over time. First off, many of the widely read tech bloggers aren't the best writers either.

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Gust

JANUARY 13, 2013

Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard via ShinyShiny.tv. Many believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made. While I agree that successful company builders usually have a natural inclination to be entrepreneurs, a good education helps polish that apple. There are people who are natural musicians, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try to teach them music.

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Berkonomics

JANUARY 17, 2013

My brother, Barry, passed away recently. A world famous architect, he is credited with the design of over 600,000 homes worldwide. He had been named one of the world’s top 100 architects by Architectural Digest, and one of the ten most significant figures of the 20th century by Residential Architect. He was quite a role model as a big brother, five years my senior.

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Derek Sivers

JANUARY 5, 2013

I’ve been doing this for a year, and it’s the most helpful learning technique I’ve found in 14 years of computer programming. Background: I’m an intermediate programmer. I didn’t go to school for it. I just learned by necessity because I started a website that just kept growing and growing, and I couldn’t afford to hire a programmer, so I picked up a few books on PHP, SQL, Linux, and Apache, learned just enough to make it work, then used that little knowledge for years.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2013

I recently wrote a post about how to manage relationships when you’re at a startup or are busy executive. It was based on an excellent book I had just read by Brad Feld & Amy Batchelor (his wife). I had images in my brain of all of the stresses I had placed on my wife in the heyday of my startups. We once took a “vacation” in Spain with Tania’s parents but we were in the midst of an M&A transaction so this photo is how my wife & her family remember me on that

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 1, 2013

In 2012, I started my second company--a venture capital firm called B rooklyn Bridge Ventures. Becoming an entrepreneur again has been a ton of work, but incredibly rewarding. In a year, I went from an idea and a track record to more than $5mm of limited partner commitments, six investments in incredible entrepreneurs (to be announced when I get my new website up), and a ton of opportunity to create innovation in New York City.

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Gust

JANUARY 9, 2013

Years ago I came across the idea that in entrepreneurship, education and experience contribute to likelihood of success roughly like you see in the chart here. The underlying assumption is that a lot of education makes up for very little experience, and vice-versa. And this is in the context of startups, investment, and entrepreneurship. . I’ve drawn it here MBA style, with a line on two axes, pretty much the way I first saw it, with a smooth curve from one extreme to the other.

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Berkonomics

JANUARY 3, 2013

Most every business can take advantage of continuing, recurring revenues from its customer base. Sometimes, products are designed to make all of their profit upon the recurring revenues from supplies or support. We immediately recall the razor and blade analogy to illustrate the point when planning product development and release. Xerox in its formative years, even though barely having enough cash to market its then revolutionary copier, elected to lease rather than sell the units.

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strategy innovation support development 79

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For Entrepreneurs

JANUARY 16, 2013

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” – Lord Kelvin This article is a comprehensive and detailed look at the key metrics that are needed to understand and optimize a SaaS business. It is a completely updated rewrite of an older post. For this version, I have co-opted two real experts in the [.].

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SaaS startup 168

Tomasz Tunguz

JANUARY 3, 2013

Daniel Pink, former speechwriter for Al Gore, has written an unconventional book on sales called To Sell is Human. In this well researched book, Pink observes a few surprising evolutions in society and their impact on sales. The hard sell is dead. Enabled by the internet, prospective buyers know more about a product than a salesperson. This is true for cars as much as enterprise software.

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transportation pitching consulting education 40

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 29, 2013

Jody. You’re gone too early. We still had so many more times to spend together. I loved this image I saw posted by Andy Rankin. Because this is the one word that was not in your vocabulary. And it was the first word I muttered when I heard the news tonight. I remember when we met years ago. I think Michael Kantor introduced us. You were pitching me an online business selling other people’s baby food.

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pitching advice VC entrepreneurs 406

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 28, 2013

Tweet. As I finished up my weekly newsletter of NYC's tech events and classes , I thought a lot about some recent conversations I've had with some new entrants into the startup ecosystem--enthusiastic young professionals whose stated goals centered around learning. I sometimes find myself wondering in this world of classes, accelerators, and religious zealotry around methodologies if anyone is, in fact, learning anything.

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Gust

JANUARY 27, 2013

Howard Gardner photo via TheDish.org. Being a good entrepreneur means being able to effectively convince an investor that you have a great idea, persuade partners that your approach is right, and convince potential customers that the solution is right for them. If all your ideas are intuitively obvious to everyone, you probably aren’t thinking outside the box, or don’t really have the next big thing.

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Berkonomics

JANUARY 31, 2013

Ever had a manager who hung those motivational posters around the office, spoke of “pushing together,” or “you’re empowered to give great service” – and then acted at least once in complete disregard of those statements? It takes only one time caught by subordinates to lose the faith of an entire group of faithful followers. And that certainly counts for customers too, although the customer jungle drums don’t communicate quite as fast as the virtual water cooler system, even with today’s many w

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Derek Sivers

JANUARY 26, 2013

You have a bigger audience than you had just a few years ago. You have more people reading your updates, and wanting to hear something new. Standing on this virtual stage, you want to be entertaining, post exciting updates, be impressive, and keep their attention. You’re so rewarded with status when you do. But what happens when the thing you really need to do is boring to others?

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development 52

Tomasz Tunguz

JANUARY 22, 2013

To be truly successful, I believe startups should determine which of the four core disciplines is their strength: product, engineering, marketing and sales - and focus, focus, focus on leveraging that advantage in the market. Product driven startups - At their outset Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram were exploratory products driven by their respective creators, Jack Dorsey Ben Silbermann, and Kevin Systrom, who were each product managers building a product of their own vision.

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 30, 2013

Somebody commented that in 2013 I have done a lot more personal posts than usual. I didn’t set out that way. It just happened. Lots of tragedies in the past couple of months. Aaron Schwartz. Sandy Hook. Now Jody Sherman. And my friend Brad Feld & his wife had written a book on the importance of personal relationships which made me want to weigh in on that.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 8, 2013

Tweet. The last thing I ever want to do is create work for my portfolio companies. That being said, I think that there's a certain amount of management communication that serves a purpose well beyond just letting the investors know what's going on in the company. Ideally, investor communication serves the following purposes: Focuses the attention of the CEO on goals over a fixed about of time: "What are we going to accomplish between now and the next update?".

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opportunity venture capital technology capital 388

Gust

JANUARY 20, 2013

Image via Facebook.com. Since the days of Henry Ford, mass production has been the Holy Grail of business, rather than build-to-order. Too many businesses haven’t noticed that we have come full-circle, where mass customization is required now to win. Customers have come to expect immediate and tailor-made responses to their needs, and the businesses that fail to deliver quickly fall behind.

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Berkonomics

JANUARY 24, 2013

You’ve heard the old one – that a banker always seems willing to offer a loan when you don’t need it. For small businesses, there is such truth in that statement that you can trust the story to be based in reality from experience. There are great exceptions for growing businesses and for businesses that have a track record with a banker. Working capital loans and lines of credit are needed for growth and during times of business stress.

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capital 66

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Gust

JANUARY 15, 2013

December update and insights about new startups: India became second last month as the country with the highest count of new Startups, right below the United States. India’s average position for the year has been fourth, it came up to third in February and between June to August, but only reached second for the first time this past month. Top 5 Us states remained steady this month and were consistent with their yearly averages.

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Gust

JANUARY 31, 2013

Last month, the SEC announced it was taking action regarding Netflix’ (NFLX) securities compliance based on a Facebook status update posted by CEO Reed Hastings. The move came as a shock to many in the tech business community, in which we’ve become accustomed to real-time disclosure by company executives through social media. What could be wrong with more transparency?

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media mix-use advice financing 158

Gust

JANUARY 30, 2013

Actual, fundable, serious startups in a single weekend? No. Real? Great learning experience? And worth doing? Yes. . Last Sunday night I judged nine pitches from nine groups that started from scratch just two days before, late Friday afternoon. They had some good ideas, good pictures, a prototype or two, some good video … and an entertaining event. .

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Gust

JANUARY 15, 2013

Is the bloom off of the startups rose? Two days ago the New York Times published this story about investors getting pickier. I think the NYTimes’ headline is slightly off from the story’s content. It’s not that much about a rocky recent past; it’s more about money being too easy in the recent past, and now, as a natural result, things get tighter because “easy” money doesn’t always mean enough of the due diligence and thought to make good deals.

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