Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Your historical trading information including financials and a “customer file” which shows the history of your transactions so that investors can run “cohort” analyses Customer reference, personal references, key team members, compensation, cap table, stock option plan, etc. Entrepreneur : “Sure. Some people find this elitist?—?I

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

In my case, the youngest member of my biking group is nearly 15-years older than me, which causes them to refer to me as a "kid" and a "youngster." As a Professor at UC Santa Barbara , I am blessed to work with enterprising and talented entrepreneurs in their early 20''s. Where You''ve Been. Share and Enjoy.

Entrepreneur 193

Entrepreneur Santa Barbara Mentor Research 193

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 15, 2014

Multiple surveys confirm that honesty is one of the most common traits of serial entrepreneurs. In his book, The Entrepreneur’s Manual , Richard White cites a survey of venture capitalists which ranks honesty as the single most important characteristic for serial success. Image : Wikipedia. Share and Enjoy.

Entrepreneur 189

Entrepreneur Sales Writing Customer 189

InfoChachkie

APRIL 25, 2011

Although many are entertaining, most fail to provide entrepreneurs with a sufficient return on their time investment. Unfortunately, most business books do not offer entrepreneurs an adequate payoff. It has also influenced my thoughts, as evidenced by the six infoChachkie blog entries which reference Art. No doubt, he did.

Technical Review 279

Technical Review Blogging Class Entrepreneur 279

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

I recently wrote a piece about how Entrepreneurs Should be Respected, Not Loved. The corollary to this rule is “decision by indecision.&# This is one of my favorite lines to remind entrepreneurs because it is the sort of garden variety mistake that is so common in everyday life. So you make four more reference calls.

Startup 299

Startup Entrepreneur Resource Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2014

If the deal is from out of your geography and/or out of your focus area or a deal is being referred by a well-know investor who normally co-invests with similar syndicates – at least ask yourself, “Why am I so lucky to be getting this call.” I seek out great entrepreneurs. I wrote here about why I avoid party rounds.

Venture Capital 337

Venture Capital Invest Ideas Entrepreneur 337

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

This sometimes frustrates entrepreneurs who just want to “get back to running the business.&# But if you understand it you’ll see that it is perfectly rational and it should also influence how you form relationships with investors. For this reason I tell entrepreneurs the following: Meet your potential investors early.

Invest 411

Invest Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 411

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Back to Mr. Christensen, “We subsidize their education in fields for which there are no jobs” he said in referring to the fact that many courses at universities are still taught with skills that aren’t relevant to the 21st century needs of the US workforce. The numerator (return) encourages more sales, which is fine.

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

InfoChachkie

APRIL 18, 2011

When performing 360-reviews, the reviewers must be senior enough to provide meaningful feedback, based on a solid frame of reference of “good” and “bad” management techniques. Thus, confident entrepreneurs understand the value of seeing themselves through the lens of seasoned executives whose opinions they value and trust.

Entrepreneur 217

Entrepreneur Startup Slides Examples 217

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 6, 2010

doing a reference call on a prospective employee. THE REFERENCE CALL: Reference calls are hard. We’ve obviously had a great experience interviewing him or we wouldn’t be doing reference calls. One thing we picked up from another reference call was that Bob has at times fought with co-workers.

Startup 311

Startup Invest Course Research 311

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 18, 2014

In my Twitter bio is says that I’m “ looking to invest in passionate entrepreneurs ,” which almost sounds like I was just looking for a cliché soundbite to describe myself. Passion is also the featured heavily in nearly every presentation I give to entrepreneurs or on college campuses or in talks with MBA students.

Startup 419

Startup Entrepreneur Design Funding 419

InfoChachkie

APRIL 28, 2011

Many entrepreneurs encounter a similar dilemma. Thus, entrepreneurs must decide when to stop listening to the Sirens’ song of a quick buck and position their company to take advantage of long-term, sustainable business models. However, in the long run, entrepreneurs always benefit from delivering Maximum Utility for a fair price.

Entrepreneur 225

Entrepreneur SaaS Pricing Cloud Computing 225

socalTECH

JUNE 18, 2013

Are you a fan of the NFL or NBA--and wish you had an easy reference to the players and picks in the draft for those two sports leagues? The app--which is free--is the brainchild of David Rabie and Joe Sarafian, two Santa Monica entrepreneurs who were born and raised in Los Angeles.

Santa Monica 227

Santa Monica Santa Barbara Statistics Seed Funding 227

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. At Upfront we’re totally fine funding entrepreneurs who have done multiple businesses in the past – in fact we like it. But I’m guessing the narrative is similar elsewhere.

Funding 373

Funding Technical Review Startup Screening 373

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

Yet a critical mistake I see many entrepreneurs make is that they hand over too much control to their third-parties. Often recruiters want to handle the final negotiations on package and/or do the reference calls. I’m also reluctant to hand over reference calling. Unfortunately that’s how reference checking works.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

InfoChachkie

JULY 4, 2011

For sake of grammatical convenience, I will refer to Sam as a male in the remainder of this entry. However, typical of an Optimistically Pessimistic entrepreneur, Sam never loses hope, and does gives up. For more suggestions regarding parenting an entrepreneur, check out parts I , III , IV and V of this series.

Sales 219

Sales Entrepreneur Startup Product 219

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

Of course these are great places to network with other investors, meet great entrepreneurs and keep your connections strong with senior execs at larger companies like Yahoo!, You can’t reference check your way into a “yes.” 1: You clearly haven’t persuaded the entrepreneurs that you are value-add to their deal.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2020

As an angel investor in startups, I’m a believer that smart investors invest more in you as the entrepreneur than the next billion dollar solution you are pitching. Even if you are still in school, and never started a company before, strong entrepreneur candidates can point to projects they initiated, led, that produced significant results.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Startup Examples Metrics 124

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Boss Reference - Your potential boss will check your references. Even if the reference did not work directly with your future manager, they may still have valuable insights that would otherwise be impossible for you to uncover during the interview process. You should do the same.

RSS 229

RSS Entrepreneur Startup Email 229

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

In case you don’t know – as VCs we have have 2 sets of customers: LPs (limited partners) who invest money in our funds and entrepreneurs (who we in turn give money to and help support them in building businesses we hope will be valuable). Who else is going to tell a VC if he got a bad reference from an entrepreneur or fellow VC?

Customer 341

Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

Yesterday I had lunch with a really interesting and capable serial entrepreneur who is raising his A round. When people refer to a strategic investor they are usually talking about an investor that comes from the industry you serve as opposed to an independent venture capital investor. The topic of &# strategic&# investors came up.

Venture Capital 279

Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur Framework 279

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). Because many great entrepreneurs work with lawyers in registering their companies they have their ear to the pavement on the earliest of company formations.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

InfoChachkie

APRIL 9, 2013

Comedians are entrepreneurs. In addition, both comedians and entrepreneurs must engage and entertain their demanding audiences. As such, there is much entrepreneurs can learn from their comic brethren. Entrepreneurs clearly are not well served by chiding or mocking their audience.

Tips 241

Tips Entrepreneur RSS Startup 241

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But a couple of people replied with responses of such lack of comprehension that I thought it was worth expanding on for first-time entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs achieve much through their personal leadership traits that inspire others to do great things with them – sure. Not possible. ” Or there was this one.

Startup 363

Startup Venture Capital Coach Press 363

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2009

I recently got a phone call from an entrepreneur whom I respect and who runs a company that I hope will do great things one day. Entrepreneurs get so used to friends and family congratulating them on their press coverage that they forget sometimes that this isn’t real. Many entrepreneurs have a PR page in the PowerPoint deck.

Venture Capital 291

Venture Capital Press News Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. I was interested in learning more.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

Great networking skills, which are critical when you want to be about to reference entrepreneurs & concepts and bounce your ideas off of other people in the industry. He was also an undergraduate of the one place that I think is cranking out some of the best young entrepreneurs and investors these days – Wharton.

Help 365

Help Invest Venture Capital Technical Review 365

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

A reminder that it is important for all entrepreneurs is to remember to be careful about “deal drift.” Conversely I offered the same deal to another entrepreneur who decided to shop around longer. Don’t be complacent – What really winds me up is when entrepreneurs are complacent. If they want reference calls be ballsy.

Venture Capital 301

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Technical Advisors 301

InfoChachkie

MAY 9, 2011

This series describes how entrepreneurs can craft company-changing agreements with BDCs, while avoiding Kiss of Death contract provisions. Entrepreneurs should never agree to the following provisions when negotiating with a BDC, no matter how lucrative the potential relationship. Kiss of Death ConTraps.

Outsource Development 170

Outsource Development Entrepreneur Press Technical Review 170

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

When you’re hiring most reference checkers focus on the person’s former bosses. Just literally this week I had breakfast with a guy giving a reference who said, “He’s brilliant. In fact, just a short Google search reveals that I’ve referred to him frequently through the years. But he knows it.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 14, 2011

Peer Group – Meet with other emerging entrepreneurs who will help you objectively evaluate your experiences and provide relevant feedback regarding your successes and failures. It will also allow you to refer back to past experiences without risking an erroneous decision based on a false memory. The choice is yours. _.

Startup 206

Startup Journal Writing Blogging 206

InfoChachkie

MAY 7, 2012

Skilled entrepreneurs bring ideas and money together by building a bridge of trust. I likewise value an entrepreneur who treats my money like their own and understands the difference between spending and investing. Confirmation from people whom the entrepreneur did not cite as a reference is vital.

Ideas 251

Ideas Venture Capital Education Entrepreneur 251

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

We both wanted to build a practice that would make Los Angeles proud but where we would travel tirelessly to other locations to make investments in the best entrepreneurs wherever they were. I made some reference calls. And there was instant chemistry and where we both saw our respective futures. So we talked about his joining.

Venture Capital 360

Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 11, 2010

[if you're not old enough to get the reference between this image and the title you can click on the image for a prompter]. This past December I spent a week in Boston to try to get to know some of the local VC’s and entrepreneurs a bit better. Entrepreneurs need to share more information with each other.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Incubator Entrepreneur 285

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2013

Dorrian is an entrepreneur. At D Elon said he worried that our most talented entrepreneurs these days were too small minded in their objectives. The reference to Andy Dunn and me is responding to this post I wrote (in response to Andy’s earlier post). He is that.0001% He knew me then. But this one is for Dorrian.

Venture Capital 315

Venture Capital Rancho Palos Verdes Entrepreneur Ideas 315

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It’s what separates the true entrepreneurs from the wannabes. Are you ready to start?

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Funding Startup Technical Review 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 4, 2009

Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company. Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. This is the easiest one for most entrepreneurs. But most good entrepreneurs do this naturally.

Sales 319

Sales Startup Platform Tips 319