Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. What makes up revenue?

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

I recently sat down with Matt Coffin , the founder of LowerMyBills, which sold for $400 million but was very nearly a bankruptcy only a few years early, and talked “startups.&#. Matt is one of the most transparent, focused & honest startup guys you’ll meet. Or read the quick, informative summary below the image!

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Acquisition Startup Custom Customer 304

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 16, 2011

Below is a nice summary of our interview with some great quotes from Joanne. It’s the key to growing a successful business and is a theme the Steve Blank plays up a lot. Be a mensch – the world is small than you think and bad karma will catch up to you “We’re in a very small community. Start early.

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Startup Sales Venture Capital Entrepreneur 311

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2011

I spoke at Stanford last year about starting a tech company. They really cleverly chopped the video up into small bite-sized segments. Here is a quick summary of my POV: When you start a company a 50/50 partnership seems obvious. One person gets married or has kids and starts to de-prioritize the business.

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Startup Equity Funding Summary 393

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact). By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition.

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Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart. But I do have more insight into understanding your startup team. Often I’m asked by startup CEO’s about how to best build an engineering team.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

Brad wrote up his answer here – you should read it because it’s very instructive for how I believe communities ought to think about naming conventions. I recommend that you start by writing down the attributes you would want people to think about when they think about your brand. This is the list I would start with.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles Woodland Hills 304

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

I recently wrote a post about why I didn’t think early-stage startups should have COOs. In bringing up the issue I wasn’t “hating on COOs&# – I’m just challenging you to think about whether your CEO + COO structure really provides the right amount of clarity in your organization. I find them strange.

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Startup CTO Hire Sales Email 292

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2014

A new, San Diego startup-- Chef''s Roll , thinks it has the answer--a social network specifically aimed at chefs. The site said it has created a place where chefs can promote their talents, their career achievements, and more, whether they are just started up or are a celebrity chef.

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Startup Summary San Diego Social Network 240

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2012

I recently read Brad Feld’s thought provoking piece encouraging founders to sit on the board of another startup company. I found it thought provoking because I’ve always believed startup founders need extreme focus on only their company to succeed. But for now, the summary is: You’ll extend your network. .

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Startup Carson Summary Press 294

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

” If you don’t read any more of the post, the summary lesson learned for entrepreneurs is this: Product-centric founders often over-intellectualize their communications and therefore fail to sell their concepts to the masses. Whenever I think of messages to communicate I always start by thinking about the audience.

Entrepreneur 370

Entrepreneur Startup Press Venture Capital 370

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. But the reality is that I engage with about 5 new startups each year which means that I end up working with less than 5% of the startups where I provide these free consulting sessions. Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 264

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Get your product/market fit working before you ramp up your costs (or raise too much money). Let me start by saying two things: Events like this are invaluable to startups because the significant value comes from building the network across portfolio companies and the discussion one can have with your peer group.

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Startup Venture Capital Tips Custom Development 279

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. But the reality is that I engage with about 5 new startups each year which means that I end up working with less than 5% of the startups where I provide these free consulting sessions. Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

You might like to think that a bunch of savvy venture capitalists saw a market niche for raising smaller funds or perhaps there was a generational shift where disgruntled junior partners spun out of bigger firms to start their own gigs. I launched my first startup in 1999 so I know the economics of launching from first-hand experience.

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Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. Innovate In the early years of a startup there is a lot of kinetic energy of enthusiastic innovators looking to launch a product that changes how an industry works.

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Startup Technical Review Custom Customer 286

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

I’ve had a long-standing rule of thumb in product design, which I call “design for the novice, configure for the pro.&# I started saying this back in 2001/02, long before the era of Web 2.0, lean startups or even the advent of AJAX. Fast forward a decade and now I had a startup filled with smart web developers.

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Design Startup Web 2.0 Tips 325

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

It is the bane of every startups existence because it takes up so much time, it is so competitive to sign people and it feels like unproductive time because it’s not moving the ball forward on product, engineering, sales, marketing, biz dev, fund raising. Set up calls for VCs to welcome her to the team. Recruiting.

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Press Startup Email Sales 341

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2010

I know that this will sound like a random post topic for startup advice but I promise it’s relevant. When I started blogging I had an idea. I would take all of the one-on-one conversations that I have with entrepreneurs from the things I’ve learned and just write them up for anybody to read. Tomorrow if possible.

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Startup Press Course Writing 294

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This is a long post, so I put an executive summary here if you want to get the point without reading all the detail. If you plan to read the post you can skip the summary if you want. This applies equally to VCs, startups & big company executives. Just 12 bullet points & you’re done.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2019

This is part of a series on a Board of Directors at a Startup. High Functioning Startup Boards High-functioning boards have a tight-knit relationship between all members based on mutual trust and admiration. They are able to divide responsibilities and work to gain consensus on tough decisions that every startup inevitably faces.

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Startup Venture Capital Layoffs Resource 269

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 20, 2014

My experience personally reviewing over three hundred executive summaries each year, all sent to me unsolicited, seems to bear out the truth in Tyson’s statement. Starting up' “Everybody’s got a plan – until they are punched in the face,” stated boxer Mike Tyson. Anyone can build a good – or great – plan.

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Startup Summary Metrics Class 245

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

I think you’ll really enjoy this video , but as always I have summary notes for those with less time. If you like the quick summary notes, please check out Adam’s blog on tech, entrepreneurship & VC as a thank you. 2. Chris then discussed his time as founder and CEO of SiteAdvisor, his first venture-backed startup.

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Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. With the LeWeb conference about to start in Paris I thought the timing of this post would be appropriate. But don’t assume that I have a Minority Report like machine that can invisibly and instantly gin up my memory. I here to meet people – come up and say hello.

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Startup Conference Email Venture Capital 322

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

This is part of my series on Startup Advice. I love working with Aussies because their outlook on life seems very similar to what I grew up with in California. I recommend starting the meeting with a VERY brief introduction of your company, your background and why it’s relevant to the job you currently have.

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Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

Startups that are backed by professional financial investors almost always have a Board of Directors that consists of some set of founders, investors and sometimes independent directors. It is worth pointing out that there are actually three levels of governance in venture-backed startups. This is often called “corporate governance”?—?in

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Startup Writing Framework Summary 204

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

I was recently interviewed for an article that appeared in Fast Company titled, “ Why you should start a business in LA.&# If you’re interested in the topic it’s worth a read, but I thought I’d elaborate on the topic since it comes up all the time. Zorik Gordon is tearing it up at ReachLocal.

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Companies Company Technology Startup 290

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

For years I saw myself as the new guy in VC but then you wake up one day and realize that 50% of your peers have been doing it for less time than you and time has moved on. Building Startups for Basecamp. To be clear – almost all of the great deals I’ve done started with an intro. It’s exhausting. And so forth.

Startup 317

Startup Technical Review Venture Capital Email 317

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I just had to line up behind him. We then started talking about Dave McClure. At first I was cynical about his ability to have 500 startups (or some fraction of that which is still larger than any VC has). I started to realize that Dave is able to do it because he approaches VC differently. I love the concept.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Or, as always, summary notes available below. Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. How did you start blogging? “My In 2004 / 2005 I was starting to get intrigued with user-generated content. was starting. But, in fact, I would rather have an executive summary than a pitch deck. Brad on blogging.

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Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. Importantly we also discussed: should startups raise small amounts of money or large? how should you organize teams in a startup? And make sure to pick up a copy of his book.

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Social Media Startup Metrics Media 301

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. As You Start to Mature. In the Early Days. You’ll get empathy. Experience.

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Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

TechEmpower

MARCH 27, 2013

The following post is a comprehensive summary of the developer-facing changes coming in Java 8. I'll do my best to keep this document up to date. Package summary: java.util.function. Package summary: java.util.stream. A stream can only be traversed once, then it's used up. java.util.function. java.util.stream.

Java 560

Java Class Software Review Examples 560

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2010

Where to Start? It’s pretty tough to review somebody and judge the quality of their work if you haven’t given them any guidelines for what you expect up front. So start there. I find this to be too much overhead for most startups. I hate process. I suck at it. But I think I’m pretty good at feedback.

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Startup Writing Examples News 297

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2014

If you’re turning up to important meetings hoping to persuade the critical people who attend of a decision you’re trying to make and having already “counted your votes” you are sub-optimizing results. If you’re a normal company you will have contentious issues creep up from time to time. Press Scandal.

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Startup Summary Email Ideas 325

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2013

Many of them have their iPhones and laptops ready to command their attention the moment that you start sucking. Stories have starts, middles and ends. I They all start to blend together. In any speech I do that is information rich I often have a summary slide at the end with the key points I want them to remember.

Slides 399

Slides Startup Conference Writing 399

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

We had a training session from somebody who put up the four-quadrant graph you see above. This is really important as extroverts like to have the answers presented to them up front. For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase.

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Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358