Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2016

Every new entrepreneur who has not spent years in corporate life has the advantage of an unbiased look at business opportunities, but at the same time has the disadvantage of missing critical business experiences that can cost them dearly in their first startup venture. Startups don’t come with formal training courses.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2016

Thus the top priority of every entrepreneur who wants funding should be to build and highlight their “dream team” of co-founders, executives and advisers, to attract the biggest and best investors. Solo entrepreneurs rarely find an investor. Do your networking with investors well before the funding pitch.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 8, 2016

One of the myths I often hear as an advisor to many entrepreneurs is that their lifestyle would somehow be better if they could more easily find other people’s money to build their startup. Most entrepreneurs never forget for a moment that having investors means owing money, even if they can legally argue that equity is not debt.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Others, like Guy Kawasaki , have irreverently called some of these “entrepreneur lies,” but I prefer to think of them as innocent enhancements or omissions that can kill your deal. Of course, customers love free, but investors hate it. Entrepreneurs in this category are usually dreamers. None of these cases are credible.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

The new war for platforms has mostly been waged by Andreessen Horowitz who have raised astounding amounts of capital and therefore had the fees to put into providing more services for entrepreneurs. And there is often competition over marketing activities, fund raising ownership and the like.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2016

There is no skill more vital to an entrepreneur than effective networking. I just finished a new book, “ Hopping Over The Rabbit Hole ,” by Anthony Scaramucci, a well-known entrepreneur, financier, and television co-host of Wall Street Week. Marty Zwilling First published on Huffington Post on 11/05/2016.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

It’s why the first company I ever invested in as a VC – Invoca – just announced a $20 million funding by Accel Partners. Of course that website isn’t completely up to date but it’s a great resource for seeing the overall picture. That number is projected to GROW to 70 billion by 2016 (Source: BIA Kelsey).

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 24, 2016

Every entrepreneur I know starts out with a strong conviction that their solution is a perfect match for their target market, and yet almost every one later admits a need to “pivot” before finding their groove. Course corrections, or pivots, are normal for new ventures, so expect them and don’t make excuses.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2016

As an entrepreneur looking for professional investors, one of the quickest ways to lose credibility and get rejected is to start with a ridiculously high pre-money valuation. Relate your startup to similar startups funded with a higher valuation. Marty Zwilling First published on Entrepreneur.com on 03/09/2016.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

And here’s an important point that I think modern entrepreneurs often forget: Investors are “co-owners” of your business. Planning and dealing with extra-ordinary events: M&A, fund raising, crises. There are just as many bad entrepreneurs who do bad things. As You Start to Mature.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. If you look at the structure of the travel industry above – of course we know that the hotel industry is fragmented while the airline industry is reasonable consolidated.

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LATechDigest

MAY 13, 2016

In addition to advising the companies on various core business practices and ways to improve their products, SMASHD LABS worked to create experiences that set them apart form other accelerators, in order to enrich its entrepreneurs with different ways to approach their businesses and their products. Applications are open through June 5, 2016.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

The funding environment for tech startups is an ever shifting ground as we go through predictable shifts that go hand-in-hand with the slowing of the overall market. Explosion in Seed Funds. Now seed funding is conventional wisdom. Here is a brief history first to put the changes into context. Rise of Seed. I Leaderless Rounds.

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Xconomy

AUGUST 12, 2016

Xconomy spoke with Jacks and CEO and longtime tech entrepreneur Bill Haney about the venture, a cancer immunotherapy startup that is relying on funding from family offices—among them the Disney family—rather than venture firms.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

I’d like to explain as best I can my opinion on what is going on because most of what I hear from entrepreneurs is not only wrong but is reminiscent of what I heard in 1997-2000. ” “This will be great for VCs and bad for entrepreneurs.” What is the True Sentiment of VCs? ” “Sure, prices are dropping.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

Of course it’s too early to predict whether this is a trend or an aberration but the smartest people I know in the industry are predicting the former. As we noted in our survey of more than 150 VCs we know in the industry, many saw drops in Q4 valuations last year with nearly all of them projecting decreases in 2016.

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socalTECH

MAY 10, 2018

Behzad Kianmahd is the co-founder of Los Angeles coworking space Cross Campus , which is one of the major centers of startup activity in Silicon Beachand also involved as co-founder and lead investor in a brand new, venture capital fund, TAU Ventures (www.ideasimmersion.com/tau-ventures/). It was the Summer of 2016, if I'm not mistaken.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 18, 2015

Fast forward 3 years and looking out into the 2016 horizon, what do I see? Or the influx of massive new amounts of entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs seeking fortune and fame? Final venture outlook 2016 from Mark Suster. Perhaps I would call it “Mourning in VC” as in mourning for the days of rational behavior.

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