Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2011

tl;dr version: If you’re an entrepreneur or VC or will be working in this industry - buy this. When I first started as a startup CEO in 1999 there were no guides on raising venture capital. 3) VCs are anal about things like voting thresholds, seniority of their stock, protective provisions, etc. Drag along rights?

Venture Capital 304

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Guide Blogging 304

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 27, 2013

6 or 7 years ago when TechCrunch was at its peak market share (they are still strong but many more tech blogs have also popped up) there was a term for getting covered there called “the TechCrunch bounce.” that they probably read the main tech blogs. Frankly, every VC’s, too. Perception = reality.

Blogging 309

Blogging Journal Press Startup 309

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2010

They had received a term sheet from a VC and were wondering whether to work with this firm. I often tell people that raising venture capital is more difficult than getting married. Not so in venture capital. You’re tied at the hip to your VC. But what was the VC like when the chips were down?

Venture Capital 298

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Help 298

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NOVEMBER 18, 2012

As I’ve written about before, You’d Have to be a Big Baby to Complain about Being a VC. Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. And I’m happy as a VC. And why I woke up at 4.50am. And yet you have to.

Blogging 420

Blogging Press Entrepreneur Venture Capital 420

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OCTOBER 29, 2010

I’m often asked by people, “how do I get into VC?&# Well, I know 3-4 VC jobs that are publicly available. Every time I do recruiting I get somebody who says, “I’m willing to take a step back in my career to work in VC.&# This isn’t likely to appeal to us. Tags: VC Industry. Yesterday.

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Technical Review GRP Partners Email 290

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APRIL 18, 2010

I’ve been using Chartbeat for over a month now to track performance of my blog and I find myself looking at Google Analytics much less these days. The next users after that is reading a blog post that I wrote nearly 9 months ago. I tend to agree with them but I think that numbers are important in VC meetings.

Blogging 287

Blogging Google Screening Mahalo 287

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SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I was reading Chris Dixon’s blog tonight. I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. I just completed an exercise where I went out to hire a new associate for my VC firm, GRP Partners.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

I titled this post “We Must Have Zero Tolerance in Venture Capital” but of course I could just say “zero tolerance anywhere” because that’s true. As a VC let me specifically just speak out for our industry. I have known Shervin, liked him and respected his big bets as a VC like Uber and Hyperloop. I was wrong.

Venture Capital 254

Venture Capital Capital Course Report 254

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MAY 13, 2018

The typical VC process is as follows: They say there are three rules in property: Location, location, location. The surest sign a fund-raising process has stalled is when you aren’t getting follow-up meetings or hearing from the VC or hearing from friends that they got a phone call or email asking about you. Same with VC.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

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JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. I just want to figure out what a fair valuation is.&# I figured all the VC’s talked so we should. But this example above is all entrepreneur math, not the VC’s.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

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MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage? What price?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

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MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. I’d link to it but it’s behind a paywall.

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Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

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NOVEMBER 9, 2014

I have blogged about some of the downside consequences of the changes and the private information I have says the consequences are much worse than is reported in the press since few people publicly talk about. Does he blog about venture capital and try to advise entrepreneurs? Has written a book on venture capital.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

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FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She hasn’t raised any venture capital. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. So Tracy began keeping a blog about … (what else?) She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. That may soon change.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

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OCTOBER 3, 2011

On my blog I’ve been hesitant to take the topic head on. But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “ Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts? In it she observes that only 3% of the comments on this blog are from women. Please watch this.

Entrepreneur 341

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Blogging 341

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MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” “Ok, so this guy can write a blog and source deals but can he make any money?” 5 years ago.

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

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MARCH 8, 2018

If you’re an entrepreneur who would like to see this clause in more startups please ask your VC to include it in future term sheets and link to it from their home page. “We Ours is: upfront.com/inclusion. We strive to invest in companies that are consciously working to create a diverse leadership team?—?

Venture Capital 284

Venture Capital Coach Ideas Startup 284

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NOVEMBER 11, 2013

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. Relaunching our brand is part of our larger initiative to build a VC firm of the future.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Startup Blogging Platform 324

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JUNE 12, 2013

Brunson’s short and to-the-point blog post, “ It’s Called Networking, Not Using.” It’s why I wrote the blog post on 50 Coffee Meetings. It’s why I talk about building VC relationships early – Lines, Not Dots. “I’ve never been a VC before. ” Be authentic.

Venture Capital 407

Venture Capital Press GRP Partners Blogging 407

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OCTOBER 6, 2012

From this debate about Klout John and I have had a series of in person meetings and debates about our industry (both VC & tech) and what is changing. Including ff Venture Capital’s unique approach to finding deals and the services they provide to their startups. 2:00 Why don’t you like the term VC?

Cornerstone OnDemand 303

Cornerstone OnDemand Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup 303

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FEBRUARY 26, 2014

And what’s up with this crazy new blog design? But for now … Every year we run a big VC, LP & Tech Summit in Los Angeles (this year downtown) to showcase the best of our community and invite others from around the country. I look forward to being back to blogging next week. You disappeared? I will tell more.

Startup 290

Startup Blogging Venture Capital Los Angeles 290

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FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Union Square Ventures (USV) has been one of the most successful venture capital firms of the past 10–15 years and continues to be a leader in our industry. Lindel is no stranger to thorny venture capital issues — he was arguably amongst the most successful LPs of his generation. Maybe that’s USV, too.

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Venture Capital Funding Capital Startup 161

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MARCH 10, 2014

My blog had been looking tired for a year or two. I considered changing to a blog publishing platform that would allow me to change the visual design more easily myself. He wrote a nice blog post describing the project to redesign my website. He was able to take Jess’s design concepts and get them built into my blog.

Blogging 294

Blogging Design Venture Capital Screening 294

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NOVEMBER 16, 2010

I have Twitter chats, respond to blog comments, trade emails, respond to comments on This Week in VC. I remember! &# You’re the guy who built the Twitter plug-in for blogs. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice. I do dinners too often as my waistline can attest. You get the picture. I remember.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Blogging Conference Email 288

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SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

I must have pitched 40-50 VCs over the years. As I talked about on many occasions when I was an entrepreneur – and blogged publicly about - I learned a lot about my business and myself in these meetings. I realized it was part of the process because it’s such a high-volume activity being a VC. Possibly more.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital Blogging Conference Google 292

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DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. VENTURE CAPITAL. And finally that brings me to obvious topic of venture capital. Coincidentally my good friend Roger Ehrenberg wrote a post this past week on founders having trust in their VCs. After I posted I saw the following Tweet.

Startup 363

Startup Venture Capital Coach Press 363

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2009

I wanted to also post the series here to have it as a resource on my blog for future entrepreneurs who stop by. One of the questions I’m most often asked as a VC is what I’m looking for in an investment. I once had a debate with a prominent VC on a panel. How to build relationships with a VC. Yeah, right.

Entrepreneur 338

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Google 338

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JUNE 27, 2013

If you’ve been following the press about VC funds you’ll know this is no small feat. Perhaps the biggest piece of new news is that after 17 years of operations we’ve changed our name from GRP Partners to Upfront Ventures. Well, the venture capital industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years … and we have too.

Funding 343

Funding Santa Monica Venture Capital Startup 343

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JANUARY 18, 2011

I always try hard to make this blog a place where you can learn lessons rather than an advertisement for portfolio companies. I hope you’ll excuse me when I do the latter in combination with the former to try and explain how I see macro trends and help you think about the mind of a VC. But the masses didn’t want to blog.

Invest 303

Invest Companies Company Web 2.0 303

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JUNE 1, 2011

That was back when VCs weren’t so quick to respond to emails. I was thinking about all of this as I looked at the logs from my WordPress blog this evening. People who comment to me privately about how surprised they are by how rapidly I’ve “built a name for myself in VC&# remind me of this fallacy. I did that?

Startup 391

Startup Blogging Venture Capital Writing 391

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JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros. Partner Leverage.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2012

I wrote a blog post on how to work with lawyers at a startup nearly two-and-a-half years ago. He knows every startup & VC in town.” This was 2005 when I had no exits under my belt, no blogs … nobody was looking. I told David, “Look at the changes we’ve seen in the VC / funding market.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Startup Los Angeles GRP Partners 299

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

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APRIL 25, 2011

This thinking is largely driven by the venture capital industry (and subsequently Wall Street) who are in search of high margin, highly scalable businesses. It’s nearly impossible to get a services company financed by VCs. Why Shouldn’t Most Services Businesses Raise VC? Even tech blogs know this.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

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JANUARY 26, 2013

One of the advantages of blogging, using social media, public speaking, etc as a VC is that you get a more nuanced view of these shifts by watching your own successes and failures. They know that there some implicit legitimacy (rightly or wrongly) to your story since a VC just wrote you a $10 million check. ” Why?

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

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MARCH 14, 2013

The major battle for press is a battle for “mindshare” and it’s exactly the reason I blog. I am a VC. Consider this blog post titled, “ Christmas 2012 Shatters More Smart Device and App Download Records.” I hand out money. How differentiated is that?

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

Because my wife is a superstar she published them all on a blog here along with much other wonderful type-A mom advice. I was saying that I was happy it was all out in the open because I felt at least everybody could now understand the issues & opportunities from the perspectives of angels, entrepreneurs and VCs. It is additive.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292