2022

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Don’t Make These 5 BIG Mistakes When Answering VC/Customer Questions

Dream It

When pitching a potential investor or customer, time is of the essence. Most of that time goes to the meat of the conversion: the question-and-answer portion. During Q&A, both sides start engaging in a sort of conversational dance - with one side leading (VC/customer) and the other side following (founder). But often, we’ll hear founders misstep and repeat easy mistakes that throw off Q&A flow and cause startups to lose points.

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Innovation Indicators

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Tech:NYC is the industry association for NY’s tech sector. They play a number of important roles and one of them is to educate and inform about the impact of the tech sector in NY. To that end, they launched a valuable resource last month called Innovation Indicators. Innovation Indicators is a dashboard that shows the latest data on the impact of the tech sector on the NY economy.

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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. It wasn’t always like this and frankly it took a lot of joy out of the industry for me personally. What happened? How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets?

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How to Get a VC's Attention at an IRL Event

This is going to be BIG.

A few years ago, I was at Techcrunch Disrupt and this guy taps me on the shoulder as I was chatting in a group. He simply extended a handshake and said: “Hi, sorry to interrupt. My name is Alan. My company is Bread and we make ad creative super easy. I’m sending you an e-mail with early access to the application because I see that you’re busy with this group, but I just wanted you to match the name and the face.

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5 Ways You Can Win Faster with Gen AI in Sales

Incorporating generative AI (gen AI) into your sales process can speed up your wins through improved efficiency, personalized customer interactions, and better informed decision- making. Gen AI is a game changer for busy salespeople and can reduce time-consuming tasks, such as customer research, note-taking, and writing emails, and provide insightful data analysis and recommendations.

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Postmortem of Launch413

Paul G. Silva

A central tenet of the Lean Startup is “pivot, persevere, or perish.” On June 1st, after five years of perseverance and pivoting, my partners and I wound down Launch413. With six months now past, it feels right to share what we’ve learned. For those unfamiliar with it, Launch413 was a Post Accelerator that helped startup CEOs scale for sustained success by providing coaches with deep domain expertise.

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6 Surprising Parallels Between Entrepreneurship and Crisis PR

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Contributed to EO by Eden Gillott, who is president of Gillott Communications , a strategic communications and crisis PR firm. She’s the author of A Business Owner’s Guide to Crisis PR: Protecting You & Your Business’ Reputation, an EO Los Angeles member, and that chapter’s Accelerator co-chair. We asked Eden about the similarities between entrepreneurship and crisis public relations.

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Operationalize Your Startup

Paul G. Silva

About The Workshop. Startups don’t die from laziness. They die from working really hard… on the wrong things. You’ve launched your venture… now what? The financial lives of your team depends on you. When do you raise money? From who? On what terms? Is it time to hire or keep your burn low? Should you pivot to a new market or stay the course? The pressure to make the right decisions is intense.

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The Founder Resolve

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Investing in founder-led businesses is comforting to me. They have the ability to see the forest through the trees and do what is necessary to evolve the business. Two great examples of this are Microsoft in the mid 90s and Facebook a decade ago. Microsoft had spent more than a decade competing and winning the desktop software market and then Netscape came along and presented an entirely new market opportunity that had both major upside and major downside for Microsoft.

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The Founder and Investor Trust Problem: It's not what you think.

This is going to be BIG.

Whenever I submit a term sheet, I always caveat it by saying the following: “This is the one time we’re completely misaligned. I’m incentivized to buy up as much of the company at as low a price as possible and you’re incentivized to sell as little of the company as possible by raising the price.”. Founders seem to get that. The price negotiation process is pretty straightforward, and once a deal has been agreed upon we move on.

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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?

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Dispatches from the Road: Q2 2022

Revolution

Revolution’s team put rubber to the road this spring, traveling more than a collective 12.5K miles to visit founders, college campuses, co-investors, ecosystem builders, and communities in rising cities. While we may not show up on a big red bus every time, showing up?—?figuratively and literally?—?is core to our investment thesis. Why? Because there’s no replacement for meeting people where they are and experiencing innovation economies in real life.

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Charting a Course: Building a Winning VC Fund Strategy [Part I]

The Seraf Compass

As a newly minted manager of a venture fund, your initial response to the question “what are we busy about?” might be, “finding great companies, investing in them and waiting for big financial returns.” And, while your response would be directionally correct, it would be woefully incomplete. There is so much more to running a fund than leaping in, chasing companies and slinging cash around.

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How entrepreneurs are building resilience in their communities

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

How entrepreneurs are building resilience in their communities. By Shannon Courtney. Developing the skills to be resilient is essential in order to be a strong leader, to recover from setbacks and to adapt to whatever challenges come your way. Communities, economies and trade benefit from strong businesses that have learned to weather unexpected challenges.

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What Does the Post Crash VC Market Look Like?

Both Sides of the Table

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. The market was down considerably with public valuations down 53–79% across the four sectors we were reviewing (it is since down even further). ==> Aside, we also have a NEW LA-based partner I’m thrilled to announce: Nick Kim.

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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.

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Cultivating Inclusivity: Why Mentorship Matters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Venture Well

Find out how to provide mentorship to students who may not feel like they belong in innovation and entrepreneurship. The post Cultivating Inclusivity: Why Mentorship Matters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship appeared first on VentureWell.

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Global Organization Recognizes Diversity and Inclusion Excellence in Entrepreneurship Support

INBIA

The post Global Organization Recognizes Diversity and Inclusion Excellence in Entrepreneurship Support appeared first on InBIA.

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New Year, New Entrepreneurs: Five tips for supporting early-stage entrepreneurs ?

Source Link

Every January, the number of people who Google “how to start a business” jumps to hundreds of searches a day. This year in particular, many of these searches are coming from the millions of Americans who quit their jobs in 2021. While starting a business is a common new year’s resolution, soon-to-be entrepreneurs make the leap for a variety of reasons.

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How an ex-cop turned entrepreneur gives back by combatting human trafficking

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Contributed by Robert Young, an EO Nashville member, who is the founder and CEO of Covert Results , a private investigation and security firm. He’s also the founder of Operation Rose , a non-profit focused on solutions to prevent and combat human trafficking. Robert’s sister, Angela Proffitt , is an EO Nashville member who encouraged him to start his own company.

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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.

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Gratitude for Baer Tierkel, a mentor to many, now at rest

Paul G. Silva

Baer Tierkel. The world lost Baer Tierkel last week at the age of 61. About 20 years ago I was a kid running my first startup and Baer was one of the early people to join our Board of Advisors. He came to every board meeting with deep insights and deeper belly laughs. I learned a great deal from that man that proved pivotal. The company eventually failed, but not before helping thousands of blind people around the world reconnect with friends and family in ways many had not thought possible.

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How This Ends

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Back in February of last year, I wrote a blog post with the same title and said this about the asset price bubble we were living in and investing in over the last few years: The big question is how does this end? I believe it ends when the Covid 19 pandemic is over and the global economy recovers. Those two things won’t necessarily happen at the same time.

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What do your VCs care about and does it matter?

This is going to be BIG.

Someone asked me yesterday whether or not I would ever consider living anywhere else. For years, family was the main consideration for me concerning location. My family is based in New York. My mom had a long chronic illness before she died and my grandmother lived past 100. Being here for my family was priority one. Besides, there were a limited number of places where I could do my job in venture capital anyway—and while I might be a go to for a pitch from super early stage pre-seed and seed fo

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How a Company Becomes a Pillar of Its Local Community

Revolution

This article originally appeared in Harvard Business Review on October 3, 2022. Hill Street Studios/Getty Images There was never a guarantee that Detroit would become the Motor City. At the turn of the 20th century, any number of American municipalities with similar access to talent, materials, investment, and transportation might have emerged as the beating heart of the automobile industry.

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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.

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Venture Capital - A Practical Guide to Fund Formation and Management

The Seraf Compass

Travel to almost any part of the world these days and you are likely to run into clusters of entrepreneurship. Whether you are located in a hotbed of technology like Silicon Valley, a huge emerging market such as China, or in the ancient city of Byblos, chances are you will stumble upon a collection of entrepreneurs working to create new, vibrant companies.

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YLAI Give Back Workshops

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

YLAI Give Back Workshops. Education has a way of reaching across borders and empowering young people in a way that few other things can. As it was once said: “Education is the passport to the future, because tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for today.”. Join our YLAI Network Give Back Workshops, presented by YLAI Network Members, and add a “stamp” to your passport today.

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Upfront Ventures Raises > $650 Million for Startups and Returns > $600 Million to LPs

Both Sides of the Table

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. The industry has obviously changed enormously in 2022 but in many ways it feels like a “return to normal” that we have seen many times in our industry.

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What Is Non-Dilutive Funding and Why Is It So Important for Early-Stage Innovators?

Venture Well

When you’re just starting out as an early-stage innovator, the number of funding opportunities can be overwhelming. Learn how non-dilutive funding can be right for your venture. The post What Is Non-Dilutive Funding and Why Is It So Important for Early-Stage Innovators? appeared first on VentureWell.

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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.