Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. 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!, Oh, the conferences.

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OCTOBER 3, 2011

I’m often asked the question about why there aren’t more women who are entrepreneurs. 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? She has a quote from literally every major VC from whom you’d want to hear.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.” VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. So why does a VC ask you?

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APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5

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OCTOBER 25, 2009

Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings). I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. I guarantee this is a bad VC. Let me explain.

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InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 15, 2012

One the most frequent questions asked of me by entrepreneurs is, "How can I become a Venture Capitalist?" The inquiry is common because being a VC is (to an entrepreneur, at least) a sexy job. I define a "VC" as, "a professional investor who deploys third-party funds into relatively early-stage companies."

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? And the truth is that several entrepreneurs prefer it this way.

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APRIL 21, 2010

In writing anything positive about any of the companies I’m not suggesting that it means that I prefer them to any of their competitors. Also, some of the deals I write about I have actually seen as part of their fund raising process. entrepreneur Wil Schroter (I am an angel investor in Affordit). Really!).

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JANUARY 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting. The “Triple Play&# of VC Presentations. I funded them 8 weeks later.

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FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She hasn’t raised any venture capital. She actually IS the prototypical entrepreneur. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. But Tracy did what entrepreneurs do. More on that later. That may soon change.

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SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - First Principles.

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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. And for some strange reason entrepreneurs didn’t share this information. I just want to figure out what a fair valuation is.&# I figured all the VC’s talked so we should.

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SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

My primary role was “chief psychologist&# and as I’ve learned over the past few years the same has been true as a VC. I finally got around to writing it having read Fred Wilson’s post about what a CEO does. Some entrepreneurs make the mistake of never devolving power. Both are basically people businesses.

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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.

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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. Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage?

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2011

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Chris Sacca fly by that prompted me to want to write a blog post helping entrepreneurs understand why they should push back against VCs asking for “super pro-rata” rights. Read: it’s an option for that investor and a super expensive one to you, the entrepreneur.

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SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. 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.

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OCTOBER 22, 2010

On why you should be an entrepreneur, “A lot of people do what they have to do. So it was my great pleasure to host Chamillionaire on This Week in VC this week talking marketing, entrepreneurship, old media and, of course, music. You want to get yourself to a position where you can do what you want to do&# (Chamillionaire).

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JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. Don’t.

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JANUARY 5, 2010

This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. Entrepreneurs are inherently risk takers.

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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?”

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InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Nearly every entrepreneur has heard the refrain, "Get back to me when you have some traction,” while seeking funding. However, when uttered by most Venture Capitalists (VCs) it conveys a desire to obtain validation of your venture's value proposition from dispassionate, objective third parties. Share and Enjoy.

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MARCH 1, 2011

To be a great entrepreneur you really do need talent. Consider Usher a hard-working early-stage VC. It’s that sort of mentorship experience that drives many of us hands-on VCs. The media eats it up as they always need something to write about. As an entrepreneur getting traction, whose life are you going to change

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. Remember that the goal of an email to a VC or an introduction from a trusted mutual connection is simply to get you the meeting. The VC will smile, thank you, and later pass. This is part of a series on how to improve your fund raising game.

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SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly? Short answer – yes.

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OCTOBER 7, 2014

This is something I think entrepreneurs don’t totally understand and it’s worthwhile they do. No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 If you''re newer to VC math here''s a great primer]. Nobody cares.

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MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. But VC is like congress. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. Their data looks at tech VCs. Here the data is not always kind to VCs.

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MARCH 29, 2014

One of the hardest things for most entrepreneurs to know is how hard to push in situations where people tell you “no.” ” But then again most entrepreneurs fail. I’d say less than 20% of of entrepreneurs fit into that bucket. ’ “ In fact, NO is the one word that no entrepreneur should accept.

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APRIL 1, 2010

In today’s post I want to talk about the concept of a VC flightpath. This is my description of a VC process, not one I’ve heard from other VCs so don’t expect it to be accepted nomenclature. I have no idea why, but that’s always how it always felt to me when I was an entrepreneur raising money.

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OCTOBER 12, 2014

For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%). A day after I published this Changing Structure of VC article I noticed at least one “Angel Prorata Fund” on AngelList.

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JULY 27, 2014

What you’ll see if you watch the video is an unscripted and unfiltered look into how Scott Kupor & I see some of the changes and challenges of the venture industry. I wrote my version here and Scott wrote an excellent write-up of his views here. tl;dr version.

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DECEMBER 11, 2022

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. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened? billion fund.

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SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” My favorite new VC blogger, Hunter Walk, weighed in with some thoughtful comments about how Syndicates might actually pit, “ angel vs. angel.” Bowery Capital).

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

Back in November I agreed with Nivi over at VentureHacks to do a series on the ten most important attributes of a successful entrepreneur. Unfortunately, I don’t believe it is perfectly correlated with what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Perhaps VC isn’t the vest route for this individual.

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OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital. But some companies have entrepreneurs that seem talented on paper, are in a space that seems interesting to investors and are able to raise venture capital early in the company’s existence. 2 weeks later and we may never have raised any more VC.

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NOVEMBER 5, 2012

I use George Bush vs. Al Gore as allegory and I’ve been using it with entrepreneurs for years to sink in a simple point about how to communicate with the market. This does not mean you shouldn’t solve big, complex problems or write complex code. Most Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs I know are more like Al Gore.

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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. We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding.

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