Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

A lot of people ask me what it was like raising the Series A round for LinkedIn back in 2003. I thought I’d revisit it and share the story… First, you have to rewind mentally to early 2003. Ok, now you have the context for early 2003. Google is still a private company (their IPO was Aug 2004).

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

I ran my first marathon in London this way in 2003 raising $3,000 for Parkinson’s disease (and finishing in under 4 hours – my publicly stated goal). 4 times / 100 means if a customer uses your app frequently (say 10-20 times / day) then they are crashing nearly every day. Customer Acquisition. That’s not acceptable.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

Posted by: Doug Dosberg | September 10, 2007 9:04 AM should also take a look at kevin merritts post about saying no to some requests from large and attractive customers early on: [link] Posted by: mathew johnson | September 10, 2007 9:14 AM Matt: Interesting article but overall I disagree with such a narrow interpretation of bootstrapping.

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Offshore Startup EC2 41

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. In the era of social networks, LinkedIn, Facebook messaging, Quora and email addresses that are easily guessable, it’s easy to think that maybe you should just approach a VC directly. Meet early. Not so much.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Friendster was at its height, strongly battling MySpace after raising its premium round from Benchmark and Kleiner in the fall of 2003. Friendster’s valuation set the tone for the entire social networking space. Friendster raised a big round in 2003; MySpace started gaining traction.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

Make sure you think through how you will administer the system, handle customer queries, examine user accounts, run reports on user numbers and website traffic, etc. My experience says that if the development team relies on mockups and documents created by customers then the team and the project are in a real trouble.

Web 40

Web AJAX Software Review Development Team Review 40

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

This time around, there has been an explosion at the early stages, and the very late pre-IPO growth stages. “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,” says AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant. Now it’s glutted.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93