Feld Thoughts

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Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company’s Critical Functions and Teams

Feld Thoughts

I’ve been working with Matt since 2000. Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path. The founders of each company talked and, in between efforts to decimate the other, agreed it might be worth merging to survive. It’s a follow-up to his previous book, Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business.

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Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company’s Critical Functions and Teams

Feld Thoughts

I’ve been working with Matt since 2000. Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path. The founders of each company talked and, in between efforts to decimate the other, agreed it might be worth merging to survive. It’s a follow-up to his previous book, Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business.

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Founder Institute Coming to Denver

Feld Thoughts

A handful of folks that I know and respect have gotten involved in the Founder Institute’ Denver program. Andy Vuong of the Denver Post wrote a nice article on it titled Founder Institute is training minds for a great idea. Tags: Entrepreneurship conference founder institute.

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Lessons From The Internet Bubble: Growth vs. Profitability

Feld Thoughts

Between the spring of 2000 and the end of 2001, I had the worst, most stressful, and most painful business period of my life. I remember the trigger point being a 3/20/2000 article in Barron’s titled Burning Up: Warning: Internet companies are running out of cash — fast. I was too inexperienced in 2000 to understand this.

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Founders – Use Your Down Round To Clean Up Your Cap Table

Feld Thoughts

I learned this lesson 127 times between 2000 and 2005. I started investing in 1994 and while there was some bumpiness in 1997 and again in 1999, the real pain happened between 2000 and 2005. I have two simple rules for founders in my head from this experience. You might have it in the bank already.

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Every Generation Learns The Same Lessons

Feld Thoughts

I spent the weekend with a friend from the last 1990s who was the lead banker on the Interliant IPO (I was a co-founder and co-chairman.) My foundational moment, where I really learned the lesson, happened during the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2000 and 2001. My first moment with this was Black Monday in 1987.

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Early Stage VCs – Be Careful Out There

Feld Thoughts

In some cases, these rounds were with experienced founders who had previously had a success and could dictate terms. In this six month period, the need for an experienced founder vanished. For anyone that remembers 2000-2003, this obviously ended badly.