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'Nearly four months ago we rebranded at Upfront Ventures. You can watch the video above for a very brief overview of why we rebranded and where we see our place in the VC ecosystem along with what has changed in our industry. The link for the video is here and if you want a short firsthand view on our changes it’s a great resource. I often advise startup companies not to try and pin all of your brand equity into an announcement.
'I find the Mike Bloomberg NYC tech legacy story really fascinating. I mean, it makes sense, right? Tech entrepreneur mayor presides over NYC tech during an explosion in company creation, job growth and venture funding. Plus, we started all these tech schools, creating all these engineers, right? Only, that''s not quite the way it happened. Don''t get me wrong, I''m THRILLED that we''re going to have some new engineering campuses in NYC and that will pay dividends to the NYC tech community for y
'Image via IntellectualVentures.com. If you expect to succeed in the thrill-a-minute, roller coaster ride of a startup, let me assure you it takes more than a good idea, a rich uncle, and luck. In fact, the idea is often the least important part of the equation. Most investors tell me that they look at the people first, the business plan second, and only then at the idea.
'By David S. Rose. Described by BusinessWeek as a “world conquering. entrepreneur” and by Forbes as “New York’s Archangel”, David is a former Inc. 500 CEO, serial entrepreneur and the founder of New York Angels. He is the. founder and CEO of Gust, the angel financing platform used by over 50,000. accredited investors in 1,000 angel groups and venture capital funds to. collaborate with over 250,000 entrepreneurs in 95 countries.
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.
Earlier this week, I chatted with a friend of mine who has founded an incredibly successful business, which he and his co-founder have been scaling impressively. I asked him about his biggest learning over the past few years. He said before having started his company and having built the team, he perceived management as a Band-Aid, as a fix for something wrong in the organizational design, communication or day-to-day operations of the company.
Must be a 1-(wo)man startup. Must code. Must write good copy. Must be passionate about solving problems for our customers, not “designing.”. Must fix other people’s designs and front-end code on production (people ship whenever they want). Must help our 1-(wo)man startups with their design problems. Must force your help on them when needed. Must take the words of our founders/whomever straight to mocks without worrying about whether we’re going to build it.
Must be a 1-(wo)man startup. Must code. Must write good copy. Must be passionate about solving problems for our customers, not “designing.”. Must fix other people’s designs and front-end code on production (people ship whenever they want). Must help our 1-(wo)man startups with their design problems. Must force your help on them when needed. Must take the words of our founders/whomever straight to mocks without worrying about whether we’re going to build it.
'One of the unavoidable realities of building a startup is having to fire people. In a normal business you can often sweep bad performers under the rug and not deal with them. When you have millions or billions of dollars of revenue you can suffer a few bad performers or bad apples. You can miss a quarter’s target and not cull the inefficiencies.
'Yesterday, I saw this tweet come across my screen. "The venture capital game has become about branding yourself so you can get into a handful of hot deals." -- @Naval on stage with @Jason. — Brian Alvey (@brianalvey) November 10, 2013. This feels like a West Coast mentality, because deals seem to feel "hot" more often out there--I believe because of founder pedigree.
'Image via TheSocialRobot.com. Based on my experience as a mentor and an entrepreneur, if you fail on your first startup, you are about average. That’s not bad, but who wants to be average? Every young entrepreneur knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road. Statistics show that the failure rate for new startups within the first 5 years is higher than 50 percent.
'By David Steakley. Our guest insight this week comes from David Steakley, a past President of the Houston Angel Network, and a reformed management consultant. He is an active angel investor, and he manages several angel funds in Texas. Hang on, David tells it like he sees it! – DB. Business plans are interesting. But, as a famous field marshal (1) said, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
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?
Constrained by a limited budget while seeking to grow as quickly as possible, startup founders must decide how to balance growing their engineering teams with their sales & marketing teams. To help inform those decisions, I’ve benchmarked the relative sizes of the sales and engineering teams of the 36 publicly-traded SaaS companies from founding to IPO, typically 7 years later.
'More. That''s what people used to want. You moved from the little room that you grew up in to the little dorm room to your crappy little first apartment. Then you got a nicer apartment, which was inevitably a bigger apartment, and then maybe a bigger one after that--or maybe a house. And you filled it with stuff, like TVs. When they came out with a bigger TV, you bought it, because it was bigger.
'2013 has proved to be a wild year. Companies being created has continued to go up dramatically making managing dealflow nearly impossible. Thank you to Tasha for helping to keep me sane by managing the onslaught of meeting requests, board meetings and constant change. You’ve had a few difficult years outside of work – I feel confident 2014 is going to be a great one!
'There are only a few times in my life where I felt like all of NYC was on the same page--sharing the same moment, and most of them were pretty bad. We all went through 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy together, but of course, we''d rather not have had to endure those tragedies, even though we were resiliant. The blackout was shared citywide, and I suppose we fared ok, taking it in stride and even having a little fun, but again, we probably wouldn''t choose to go through it again if we had to.
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.
'If I was going to start a venture capital fund around a theme, I''d pick something a little different. Forget Enterprise, or Mobile. It wouldn''t be "networks" or any other standard classification of startup. I''d start a fund around "Play". Play, it seems, is making a huge comeback. Sure, people have been playing things for years, but it feels like it''s mostly been about games. games that have winners and losers, leaderboards and points.
'Marketing strategy actually is quite important to most investors. The bottom line is that if no one shows up to buy or use your product, it doesn’t matter one whit how cool or great or innovative it is. And investors do not like top-down projections (“we’ll get a 10% market share…”). They very much want to see how you are going to get your first customer, and your second, and your third.
'My thoughts on this have changed a bit over time, as the general pace of—and level of activity in—the startup world has begun to hyper-accelerate. It’s always a good idea to be able to approach someone with whom you’ve had at least a nodding relationship, because that immediately differentiates you from a pure, over-the-transom funding request, and you are much more likely to at least get an answer.
'This is changing as the whole world of venture/angel/seed funding is rapidly morphing, but typically a ‘real’ Series A round is small enough for one traditional venture fund to do the whole thing itself. Very occasionally, they might split it with another fund, but that would probably be the exception. What we are often seeing, however, is large-ish “seed” rounds of up to as much as $1-2 million, led by an early-stage seed fund, “super-angel” or angel group,
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.
'Image via eesiflo.com. I still get business plans, looking for an investor, that say all too clearly that the primary “use of funds” will be to do research and development (R&D) on some promising new technology, like superconductivity or cancer cures. Entrepreneurs forget that investors are looking for commercial products to make money, rather than R&D sunk costs, so investment hopes are sunk as well.
'Interestingly, the large majority of venture capitalists are very friendly. It’s for the same reason that as a group, orthodontists tend almost universally to be more friendly than surgeons. ["Whaaaa?!?"! I hear you ask. Think about it for a bit, and particularly if you''ve had personal experiences with either/both groups.]. The latter profession sees you by referral from another doctor, operates on you while you’re asleep, and rarely sees you again.
'Equity-based crowdfunding (that is, providing regular people with the opportunity to purchase stock in private companies) will not be legal in the US until the first quarter of 2013 at the earliest. At that time, any company planning to operate as a “funding portal” will have to comply with an extensive set of rules and regulations established by the U.S.
'A vertical market is one in which all of your customers are in one particular industry, regardless of where in the food chain they are. For example, the site Noodle.org is a vertical search engine for the education industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a kindergarten class, an Ivy League college, or an adult education polka dancing course, it covers its industry top to bottom.
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.
'Since equity crowdfunding under the recently passed JOBS Act will not be legal until some point next year, there is currently a great deal of smoke, although not necessarily a lot of fire, around new entrants into the space. But taking a look at some operating US-based companies that currently come to mind when thinking about the space ( Kickstarter , Indiegogo , AngelList , Gust , CircleUp), some of the known angels who have invested in them include: Jack Dorsey.
'By David Steakley. This week, David Steakley returns for another bite at the corporate apple, with just the right amount of tart comments that will keep this document legal for now. Read on! - DB. How do you judge a company’s prospects, if a corporate business-to-business sale has to be your game? If your company’s market is huge corporations, how do you convince investors you can crack the market, and how do you deliver?
'Cash is everything to a new business. How many times do we have to say this? The days of being able to trust that there will be an investor or lender on the other end of a call or email whenever needed ended with the 2000 and 2008 bursts of those respective bubbles. It’s entirely possible that Amazon could not be created and funded today with its planned seven years until profitability.
'In a seed or friends and family round, tough questions, in the eyes of many founders, signal an investor that will either a) never get to the writing a check part or b) be such a pain in the ass afterwards that it might not be worth taking their money. Especially if you already have the round circled, without anyone giving you a hard time, why bother stopping for that one investor who wants more detail on how you''re going to scale?
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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