SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication?

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. When you look at how much median valuations were driven up in the past 5 years alone it’s bananas. What is a VC To Do? I can’t speak for every VC, obviously.

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC&# – the outline is here. You’ve pitched several angels and VC’s. Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. Unfortunately your advisers are wrong.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

In the comments section a clever question popped up about whether I would have invested in myself before I became an investor. In fact, my salary never caught up with my pre startup salary across 2 companies and 8 years. Sometimes the discussion veers over into whether or not he or she should get an MBA before trying a startup.

Startup 409

Startup Invest Venture Capital Writing 409

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. I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). Don’t even get me started on Demo Days.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Picking a VC is hard. So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. Most VCs are book smart. I’ve seen too many companies go off track by a VC hell bent on the team pursuing the VCs strategy which at times is about chasing the next shiny object.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# And the VC job has plenty of admin and minutiae.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital. When you’re an early-stage startup that hasn’t raised any institutional money you end up doing almost every job function of the company yourself. He was to head up UK operations.

Startup 299

Startup Venture Capital Technical Review Training 299

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings). This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. 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.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Entrepreneur 297

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

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. I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. People often ask me why I started blogging. It really started simply enough. By definition, you read blogs.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

Understanding “The Funding Angle” I sit at enough board meetings to hear conflicting advice given to entrepreneurs about how to handle PR and announcements at startups. I think many board members (including VCs) were trained 10+ years ago when life was very different and their advice often comes from an outdated lens.

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

Both Sides of the Table

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. At the highest level we’re looking for somebody really intelligent, digitally native, financially numerate and interested in startups. Plus, show my you can write! Are we elitist? Yesterday.

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Technical Review GRP Partners Email 290

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. Who started this meme? There are trade offs.

Startup 319

Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth.

Startup 408

Startup Venture Capital Writing Invest 408

Both Sides of the Table

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. If you fail, you need to start all over. Both are basically people businesses. Selling the company.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Sales Custom 319

Both Sides of the Table

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?

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Both Sides of the Table

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. Can you just show up without one?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Tracy DiNunzio isn’t your typical Silicon Valley startup founder. She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. And she didn’t start her company in Northern California. She hasn’t raised any venture capital. She leveraged herself and even sold many of her possessions to get started.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

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. They are venture bankers not investment bankers. start-ups are overvalued. It makes it extraordinarily hard to raise the next round of capital.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

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. This experience made me want to dig into my archives, re-write & publish this piece. I often tell people that raising venture capital is more difficult than getting married. Not so in venture capital.

Venture Capital 298

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Help 298

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? The most connected and high-potential founders start with wads of cash.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. It starts as a debt instrument (e.g. VC’s money comes from mostly institutional investors called LPs (limited partners).

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

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." Microscopic Industry.

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest RSS 242

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

If you’re a startup and you don’t have a close relationship with a few law firms you’re really missing one of the most important relationships that any entrepreneur can have. Many people start companies arse backwards. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. The typical VC process is as follows: They say there are three rules in property: Location, location, location. these are simply guidelines.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

It’s a hard topic to write about because it’s almost an accepted norm that total transparency is good. You took the risk to start your company. ” Your VC friends have been egging you on. .” ” Your VC friends have been egging you on. CEO transparency. It almost sounds uncontroversial.

Startup 417

Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. Let’s set up a framework. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

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. One of them is profitability.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

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. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Investors own 25%, the founders own 75%.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. Also be careful about VCs. But once a VC has heard your idea he can’t “un-think&# it. Be careful about this advice.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. I divided success into the phases of venture capital and 18 months into writing my first check here was my view (details on each in the link above). Sourcing high-quality leads : 9/10. ” Yup.

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. ” Here’s how all the drama started for me. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 A rounds back then seemed to be anywhere from $2-3 million (LA or NYC) or up to $5 million in Silicon Valley. $5 Nobody cares.

Seed Funding 399

Seed Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 399

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 23, 2011

Obviously you should have somebody that helps you research journalists, gets you meetings, pitches stories, helps prep you for interviews & helps make sure your writing is cogent. In a startup this is a mistake. And as a result their competitors were able to raise a considerable VC round from well-known firms.

Startup 349

Startup Writing Press Blogging 349

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

One of the interesting things about being a VC is that you often see companies in transition. If you’re an early investor like I am that often means writing the first $2-3 million check into a business that previously had either survived on fumes or on a $500,000 angel round. At the C round she needs to level up.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2009

One of the questions I’m most often asked as a VC is what I’m looking for in an investment. This post covers the first out of 10 that I’ll write about. It’s the person who never gives up – who never accepts “no&# for an answer. If you’re already running a startup you know all this.

Entrepreneur 338

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Google 338