Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

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. Our first big round of venture capital (our A round) was a whopping $16.5 True story.)

Founder 299

Founder Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 299

Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

I happen to be fascinated by the history of the VC industry, and one of the things we discussed at a recent offsite are the common threads behind the rise and fall of great venture capital firms. Some disgruntled younger partners left in the mid-90s… two co-founded Benchmark Capital (Bruce Dunlevie & Andy Rachleff).

Silicon Valley 240

Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

Having started and sold 3 successful bootstrapped businesses, and am now running 1 venture capital backed business ( Coach ), this is a topic I know a thing or two about. Long story short, it’s just not 2000's anymore. But as an early stage startup, accountability is so important. Having great accountability.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

Eric Friedman

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

I have been working with a number of early stage teams going through various stages of fundraising and using this diagram to help explain my thoughts on some of the questions they will come up against. There was also no hardware to make small videos at the same pace as the mid 2000’s. The Right Technology.

Technology 60

Technology Flash Early Stage Cofounder 60

David Teten

JANUARY 28, 2013

AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant concludes , “The real winners here are going to be the seed funds and early stage VCs that can write a $1 million to $2 million check. All exits occurred between 1990 and 2007—the vast majority after 2000. Those firms are only going to do a few Series A deals a year.”

IRR 114

IRR Angel Investor Angel Groups Cofounder 114

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

My co-founder and other management team members wanted us to hold off and see whether we could get the deal done at a higher price. We moved into the legal process and final due diligence in January and February of 2000. Our final closure was the first week of March 2000. I was resolute. They accepted my argument.

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

And venture capital and entrepreneurship has made life even tougher for the modern corporation. Over the last 35 years venture capital has funded nimble new entrants (on a scale never imagined by Schumpeter ) who exist to exploit discontinuities in technology or customer behavior.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. StackOverflow – We both have a love fest for Joel Spolsky who also co-founded Fog Creek Software. Invidi is based in New York and founded in 2000. DEAL OF THE WEEK.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

If a company has reached a level of success, has been around for a few years and you believe the company has potential to break out into a much bigger company then you should let the founders take money off of the table. A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How To Pitch A Product - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , August 4, 2010 I've said a bunch of times on this blog that the perfect pitch is a very short intro to provide context followed immediately by a demo. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Scalable Startup

MAY 24, 2012

Currently early stage startups all want the Facebook model – L U C K. After the 2000 crash Profit and Revenue came back into style, spawning and reinforcing real companies like Google and Salesforce.com which are Profitable and Grow. ” What about REVENUE and GROWTH and PROFIT and PREDICTABILITY?

Early Stage 22

Early Stage Revenue Naming Web 22

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 18, 2011

His name is often associated with other successful Israelis such as: Shai Agassi , Better Place founder and CEO and former next-in-line to become CEO of SAP, Safra Catz , CFO and co-president of Oracle, and David Perlmutter , an EVP of Intel and GM of Intel Architecture Group. The base of our industry is weakening.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital New Zealand Startup 100

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 19, 2016

Fortunately Steve Schlenker, co-founder of DN Capital has captured most of them in his Quora answer to the question: How hard is it to be a venture capitalist. The root of the problem, I think, is that from the outside venture capital looks easy, especially during bull markets.

Europe 60

Europe IPO LP Venture Capital 60

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

And that’s been reflected in the entrepreneurial community, where entrepreneurs, especially between 2000 and 2008, entrepreneurs really only wanted to do — for the most part wanted to do consumer software, because that’s the only software that they could actually get anybody to adopt. So that’s the big, big, big change that’s happened.

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPO’s and VC’s) - Steve Blank , July 15, 2010 If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. Here’s why. Take a look at the chart below. Performance.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217

David Teten

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

& Founder Institute UAE Abu Dhabi Virtual 2020. Pre-seed startups (all vertical) are welcome to register to world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, the Founder Institute Final Admissions Deadline: October 04. Hybrid “is the most far-reaching, in-depth program for early-stage ventures led by Arabs in Israel.

UAE 60

UAE United Arab Emirates Technology 60

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

My founders and I started the company about three years ago. Bates: Josh, it reminds me of when I was doing web sites back in the day in 2000 and 1998 and instead of going and being able to buy a shopping cart you had to code the shopping cart from scratch. I really think of entrepreneurship as the chance to solve a problem.

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95