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This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. Last year I was on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley meeting with one of the most prominent venture capital firms in the country. We were talking about a company, Factual (disclosure my firm is an investor), which was founded by one of LA’s most talented Internet entrepreneurs, Gil Elbaz , who as co-founder of Applied Semantics (purchased by pre-IPO Google for $102 million and now Google AdSense) is responsible for a large portion of the Inte
I was out at Strata, the O'Reilly "making data work" conference. I think that the only VCs there were myself and the IA Ventures team--a stark contrast to some of the other mainstream tech conferences that are pretty densely populated with investor types. What is striking me to me is how many times I was been asked "What are you doing here?". Seems that in the absence of a pitch competition or some kind of immediately obvious venture investment opportunity, people aren't used to seeing VCs.
We have discussed why never to run out of cash. This insight delves into how never to run out of cash. There are four basic ways to increase the cash position of a company: inject cash through borrowing or investment, decrease spending or payments on debt, increase efficiency of operations, and increase revenues or advance payments from customers.
This post originally ran on TechCrunch. Lately I have seen a number of deals announced on TechCrunch in which 5 or more different VCs were participating in the deal. This always makes me chuckle because in my first company we had 5 investors in our first round and we picked up 5 more before we finally sold the company. In my second company I had only 1 investor.
AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.
This is a post I’ve been dying to write for 18 months. I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. I know this because you’re not a young teenager. And if you are – what on earth are you reading such a boring blog as this?!?
The venture capital industry is so heavily skewed to Northern California, which the remains spilled over Boston, New York & Southern California. There are of course other outposts like Austin and Seattle. So it was wonderful to hear from a leading venture capital firm based in Washington DC. Revolution is a “stage agnostic&# fund (means they invest early or late) funded entirely by Steve Case , the founder of AOL and co-founded by two other individuals, Tige Savage (yes, pronounced lik
The venture capital industry is so heavily skewed to Northern California, which the remains spilled over Boston, New York & Southern California. There are of course other outposts like Austin and Seattle. So it was wonderful to hear from a leading venture capital firm based in Washington DC. Revolution is a “stage agnostic&# fund (means they invest early or late) funded entirely by Steve Case , the founder of AOL and co-founded by two other individuals, Tige Savage (yes, pronounced lik
As many of you know I run a weekly webcast called This Week in VC that’s getting between 25-35,000 weekly views across ThisWeekIn.com, YouTube & mostly iTunes. Yesterday’s show floored me. I consider Gregg Spiridellis a good friend. We’ve hung out periodically over the past few years and I have enjoyed debating many startup topics.
One of the great joys of doing the web series This Week in VC every week is that I get to spend time with great people debating the issues of our day including how our industry is evolving as well as insights into how companies got started, got their initial traction and dealt with adversities. “But Mark, isn’t it one big time suck?&#. Oh, yeah.
This article originally appeared on Silicon Alley Insider. A few months ago I wrote a post called “ Invest in Lines, Not Dots.&# It was my investment philosophy that observing teams’ performance over time was far more insightful than reacting to how good of a product demo they do, how good they present Powerpoint slides or how great tech blogs say they are.
This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills. Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. The result is a lack of knowledge of the process and of sales people themselves. My first startup was no different.
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?
Great, so you’ve closed on some cash and now it’s time to get to work—except that now you have all these random people who wrote you checks asking you questions, wanting to know what they can do, introducing you to people, etc. How do you manage these relationships? Investors have the same issue. You met a great team and you want to see what they can do, but you know there’s a great syndicate around the table so you figure that you’re not going to be depended on that much for day to day work.
In case you missed all the kerfuffle this weekend, I posted this blog post originally on TechCrunch. I attempted to do a fair balance job of an increasingly important service – AngelList – started by a friend of mine – Nivi with the feelings of a colleague who I respect – Bryce – who has opted out of the service. I hope I straddled people’s points of view well enough not to have offended anybody while adding a framework for how I think about the service.
We all have things that get under our skin--and when they turn up, they get us going from zero to sixty in a heartbeat. Every frustration, every bit of negativity cumulated over every previous encounter--it all just sits there waiting to get turned on like some big machine. Often times, they're things we can do nothing about or they're things we probably shouldn't let get to us, but in the moment, that doesn't matter.
Seven years ago (yesterday, it seems… I had the date wrong in my calendar), I started this blog. I did it because I had gotten into a daily habit of writing working on a book for college students. I never got it published (might go back and edit it at some point), but I liked the discipline of writing and needed an outlet. In seven years, I’ve thought a lot of things.
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.
As much as I trumpet New York City as *the* place to build a company nowadays, I’m a full supporter of the meme of building where you are and what suits your company best. There are lots of places that successful companies grow up—and as more cities develop critical masses of technical and entrepreneurial talent, you’re going to see a lot more dispersion of startup success.
Money in the bank is like oil in the car. This is such an obvious observation that you should think that it does not rise to the level of an “insight”. Yet, there is sage advice behind this statement that I could not ignore placing it right in the middle of these insights. As an executive, you have many ways you are pulled every day, both tactical and strategic.
Recommendation Slicing. The Internet has a problem. It’s one you know well. The signal-to-noise ratio is getting out of hand. In non-geek speak this means that there is so much information out there now it’s hard to separate the good stuff from the rest. We all now visit UGC sites to learn about products & services before we use them.
A year ago I blogged about one of my most common mantras that applies to sales, biz dev & fund raising alike: “ Time is the Enemy of all Deals.&#. When times are really good for fund raising many teams delay to maximize their valuation. Sometimes this pays off, other times it doesn’t. So how should you decide what to do? I thought I’d try to offer a framework for thinking about the topic.
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.
You know what they say: "The best laid plans.". Over the last week, I've sat down with a handful of entreprenuers and given the same advice--to construct the fantasy model. Yet, we know very well that the most thoughtfully constructed cashflow models and hockey stick traffic predictions never come out the way we thought they would, so what's the point of making them at all?
Here's an exercise. It's a little bit lean startup, but it's a little more involved than a customer call. For anyone who is building something to be monetized in the future--a content site, a community for brands to interact in, etc--write up your sales deck for monetization now as if it was six months to a year in the future. So, instead of pitching VCs for money now, assume that everything you tell investors about the future is going to happen.
It is easier to start something now than ever before. The ability of social media to help you get escape velocity is great, but it cuts both ways. A strong value proposition carried at the speed of Twitter and Facebook to the right audience could crush your company just as fast as it grew if you can’t scale. Despite advances in cloud infrastructure, many businesses still have fleshy parts—soft underbellies where a human hand is required to keep quality control, stuff something into a
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.
This is one of those “My dad used to say” homilies. You’ve probably heard the accompanying “It takes just as much effort to sell a small deal as a big one” over the years. The truth of this is more nuanced. Some businesses will prosper in the shadow of larger competitors by specializing in those smaller accounts that are just not attractive to those with higher overheads and larger aspirations.
Place your cash bets behind proven demand. The term, “demand pull – cost push” was created by the great economist, John Maynard Keynes, to describe the two primary drivers of economic inflation. Demand pull: too much demand for a product or service and not enough supply cause a competition for the product that drives prices higher without increasing the intrinsic value of the product.
I’m not an investor, I have no right to tell you what to do. I’m not an advisor & I’m not privy to any internal information at your company, I have no right to tell you what to do. I’m not omnipotent so I can’t use market power to influence your behavior. Even writing this could hurt me. I don’t want that. Twitter, I’m a friend.
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.
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