Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

When you first start your career as an investor (or when you first start writing angel checks) your main obsession is “getting into great deals.” When you’ve been playing the game a bit longer or when you have responsibilities at the fund level you start thinking more about “portfolio construction.” Hint: don’t do only 2–3 deals!!

Funding 294

Funding Startup Writing Invest 294

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

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. I give a sneak peek at a blog post I’m writing on the topic next week. I’m going to make this a regular part of the show since it was really fun.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

So my simple advice is to start PR as early as possible (and certainly earlier than most of your investors will advise) when you have your head around your product plans and are well into execution (or ready to launch) precisely because your recruiting, seed funding and initial user base may depend on it. I raised a small seed round.

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2013

If we count seed funds and large angels maybe that number goes up by 2x? But here’s the kicker. As has been pointed out by Dan Primack based on FLAG Capital data, there are fewer than 100 “real and active” tech VCs in the country. Point is – it’s a small industry. Everybody knows everybody.

Pricing 302

Pricing Seed Funding Invest Venture Capital 302

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you know, VCs end up writing sizable checks into their own funds, which is important in better aligning interests. Therefore of course they need to be more selection when writing checks and can’t spread their bets across 75 deals. million round I might write $1.8 – 2.2 So What’s the Big Deal?

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

This strangely may come even more quickly in the more successful funds, because any funds (ours included) who still hold some public stock from a recent IPO will likely be seeing write-downs sooner due to the immediacy and transparency of public stocks being repriced. The data itself bears out some of these fears.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It’s true the some VCs have started writing so many checks that they resemble stock pickers but the majority of us still have less than 10 board seats at any time and tend to go pretty deep so the result is that we care deeply about where we commit our time.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to write it because I have mixed feelings about AngelList. I didn’t want to write it because the bloggosphere doesn’t always do nuance well. So why I am writing it then? A few reasons. You should read this post.

Venture Capital 267

Venture Capital Writing Blogging Startup 267

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

My 1,000th Post on This Blog - Tim Berry's Blog - Planning Startups Stories , July 21, 2010 HTML5 video markup, compatibility and playback - Niall Kennedy's Weblog , February 8, 2010 Your Product Needs a Soul - ArcticStartup , February 12, 2010 Product Friday: Monetizing Content is a Product Problem - This is going to be BIG.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

I save room in literally every deal to invite angels (or seed funds) to co-invest with me. Even if one disagrees with the premise, why would anyone feel the need to attack Mike for writing it? With strong leads (VCs, seed funds or large angels) there is an unwritten Pottery Barn Rule. This is a hard one.

Angel 150

Angel Startup Seed Funding Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15 15 million first checks but we also have three growth funds. If you invest early and then pull back in the next 3 rounds your multiples on cash invested are much higher than if you keep writing checks. VCs have different views and strategies on this.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

The sh** or get off the proverbial pot judgment calls and the answer isn’t always “let’s fund.&# I had a friend recently call me who had been offered a pier from his VC. He had raised about $500,000 in seed funding that lasted a long time. He had already given things his best effort.&#.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2018

When investors hear that somebody else wanted to fund you it gets their FOMO going and they pile on. When a VC submits a term sheet all of those angels & seed funds who wanted to fund you “once you got a lead” are your new best friends. When you’re funded you’re often over-funded. Happy raising.

Press 232

Press Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 232

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

We hope they'll ues that prize to seed fund and start their company, and see how it goes after that. After the course, we're hoping that they will then come up with eight to ten different, professionally prepared business plans based on the original idea of the engineer or innovator. Who can enter the competition?

Competition 154

Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

This has been especially true for angels or seed investors as there is a new thesis that less capital is needed to start Internet companies so more money is being spent at this phase of the funding lifecycle. While not 1999 all over again but I am observing first-hand the signs of funding frenzy.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

No rule is ever absolute no matter how it sounds when one writes a blog. But the firm that funded my first startup was loyal to me for having stuck around in what they knew to be pretty tough times and having suffered much dilution. They seed funded my second company and even let me buy some IP in exchange for debt to get started.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Sales Software Review 285

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

Although the first draft of this post began when Kluge was a proud member of NextSpace; as of this writing we have moved to a bigger office to accommodate our expanding team. Now that we no longer commute to Windward Circle we cannot help but feel that Amplify has contributed to our growth as well.

Web Design 103

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 103

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

As I was driving home from that meeting, I decided to work from there, and ended up writing a business plan and fundraising from family and friends. Constance Curtis: We just opened up our $2M seed funding round, which just opened last week. It was either, get back on the dating apps, or pay $14,000 for a matchmaker.

Startup 203

Startup Entrepreneur Southern California Netflix 203

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2018

It also allows us to do more late stage seed funding, and early A round, and enables us to set deal terms, board seats, and get a lot more sureness around the amount of money and the check we are able to write. That really helps to catalyze the process for entrepreneurs, and helps to get others involved.

Capital 164

Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 164

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

Raising money is difficult, even with the best idea, so don’t assume any entitlement to loans, grants, or seed funding. I don’t advise pitching to famous Silicon Valley venture capitalists for major funding until well after your business is a proven hit, and you are looking to scale it up across the country or world-wide.

Startup 114

Startup Tips Coach Satisfaction 114

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 17, 2012

Available seed funding, check; another one down for the startup ecosystem checklist. Nasser explains their project, Eightshit.me , a goofy crowdsourced Twitter avatar tool that received some traction and a write up in Fast Company. “We Perhaps, what intrigued me most about Peek’s story was his beginnings in building Rocktr.

Startup 109

Startup Incubator Seed Funding Platform 109

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

In the old days there usually weren’t convertible notes on early-stage deals and there weren’t party rounds with 20 angels or 6 seed funds. This was until about 2009 because most the investments in companies came from one, maybe two, sources. So how DOES a VC think about financings at early stages? It’s very simple.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

” It was meant both as a call to those writing angel checks into other people’s companies that they ought to think about putting that capital toward themselves either by becoming a startup founder or (and this was my real point) by taking an under-market salary in a company where they can learn the right skills to do it in the future.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Brad was openly writing about this and it felt like he was giving the VC playbook away for free! We write about $40 million of first-checks into new deals / year and about $40 million of follow-on investments. Of course a group of 10 seed funds can’t fix the prices of a market. But let me be even more clear.

Startup 150

Startup Companies Company Venture Capital 150

Tech.Co

MAY 9, 2017

We started traveling to Sundance and SXSW and these shows with awesome companies, but no one was writing about it,” Taylor said. The company caught the attention of investor from China and secured a seed-funding round around $1.5 And UploadVR was born. Taylor then set up shop in San Francisco to further his mission.

Startup 70

Startup Web Development Design Education 70

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

There has been much discussion about VCs doing seed funding in the past year. I’ve written about it myself (Is VC Seed Funding Dead?) and (Is There Really a Signaling Problem with VC Seed Funding?). Knowing What the Seed Funding Policy of your VC is. Short summary of my posts: 1.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Many times I think that it would be awesome to have a conversation with them, but typically write off the idea because the process for access is too difficult. Any funding yet? We have received seed funding from a friend and it is personally funded. That’s cool! What is your business model?

Mentor 94

Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Members can also enhance their expert status by writing informative articles and position themselves as a contact person for other professionals to get information from. Any funding yet? We received seed funding from Investitionsbank Berlin , a state bank investing in innovation and technological advancements.

Networking 71

Networking Help Social Media Platform 71

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 17, 2012

Available seed funding, check; another one down for the startup ecosystem checklist. Nasser explains their project, Eightshit.me , a goofy crowdsourced Twitter avatar tool that received some traction and a write up in Fast Company. “We Perhaps, what intrigued me most about Peek’s story was his beginnings in building Rocketr.

Startup 56

Startup Incubator Seed Funding Platform 56

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

Although the first draft of this post began when Kluge was a proud member of NextSpace; as of this writing we have moved to a bigger office to accommodate our expanding team. Now that we no longer commute to Windward Circle we cannot help but feel that Amplify has contributed to our growth as well.

Web Design 40

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 40

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

For a high-volume seed fund that adds many portfolio companies every year (such as our friends at 500 Startups who invest in over 100 distinct companies annually), the cost of a bad affirmative decision (a false positive) is quite low, since it accounts for a relatively small portion of their total fund.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Steve Reich

AUGUST 15, 2015

If you can’t raise from a few strong angels, from seed funds or from a VC then raising from a ton (let’s say 20+) angels is a perfectly acceptable strategy. ” Everyone has a vision that one or two “Super Angels” will write million dollar checks and all will be well. ” Well said, Mark. .

Angel 40

Angel News Pasadena Angels Seed Funding 40

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. Because to invest at a $60–80 million pre-money valuation (or even $40–50 million) before there is enough evidence of success requires a larger fund.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Just 3 years ago there was talk of institutional investors “not being able to write small enough checks.” ” The new narrative is “will my seed funds be able to fund the prorata of their winners?” ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. It became a huge kerfuffle with many VC partners writing to thank me for the post, which exposed those that gave their industry a bad name. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

My advice: Do not mention the other VC firms, angels, seed funds, etc. update] Is Ron Conway a great guy with good intentions in writing the letter he did? I had asked them not to. They did it anyway. I didn’t work with them. So what is an entrepreneur to do? Will it be crushed? The truth always lies in the middle.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

You’re writing that book as you go along. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BIGGEST… … reason for success: Focus on the customer; thinking outside the box. There is no “how-to&# book for your company. … mistake: Pushing too hard too early.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40