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How I Invest

Both Sides of the Table

During the Q&A I was asked about how I make investment decisions in early-stage businesses. I know that sounds trite but it’s the best way I can describe my early-stage investments. If I don’t do both then it’s highly unlikely I will invest. I answered in the same way I always do so I thought I’d just write it publicly. “I

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Understanding How The Innovator’s Dilemma Affects You

Both Sides of the Table

The framework of his book has profoundly altered how I think about the technology market and affects how I thought about building my businesses and how I think about investing in venture capital. It should affect how you think if you are an incumbent but also if you’re a startup. Incumbents feel threatened.

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What To Do When Your Competitor Gets Funded?

Both Sides of the Table

Conventional wisdom says I shouldn’t tell you this because I invested in their main competitor, MakeSpace. Clutter is LA based and many of my friends invested. And our competitors are not really each other but the incumbent businesses that have 99.9% ” In summary: The competitors are the incumbents.

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The Future of Corporate Venture Capital

500

Conventional wisdom dictated that incumbents should focus their innovation efforts on R&D and growing their cash cows while investing in a few startups. But the rate of change has accelerated and with it, the balance of internal versus external investment. We believe the new corporate landscape calls for new strategies.

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After Investing $100 Million Into New VC Firms, Here’s What I Look For: Traditional But Better, or Different & Excellent.

Hunter Walk

In these cases we’re asking ourselves, can this individual/partnership execute a ‘known’ playbook better than incumbents, because it’s not very interesting to put people in business who are going to be Traditional But Average.

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The Opening

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

I like to think of investing in new things a bit like a football running play. So the existing incumbents are the defensive line. And they are not taking on any of the incumbents directly. Imagine you are the running back. You’ve been handed the football and you are looking for a hole to open up and run through.

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Sequoia Heritage, Stripe and others invest $200M in African fintech Wave at $1.7B valuation

TechCrunch

The investment is the largest-ever Series A round for the region, and it values Wave at $1.7 Four big-name backers jointly led the round — Sequoia Heritage, a private investment fund and a subsidiary of Sequoia; Founders Fund; payments upstart Stripe; and Ribbit Capital. . ” Going up against incumbents.

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