Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

As I’ve highlighted I believe we’re in a unique period similar to 2005-08 where the biggest tech firms of Silicon Valley (and some media companies) are scooping up small software companies as “talent acquisitions&# versus accretive revenue / profit generators.

Cap Table 283

Cap Table Angel Investor Liquidation Preference Deal Flow 283

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

Josh and Howard began co-investing as angels and in 2005 they started a $10 million fund. Prior to First Round Capital, Howard had invested in two of Josh’s companies Infonautics Corp. and Half.com. Infonautics went public in 1996 and Half.com was sold to eBay in 2000.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2015

Let me take you back just 10 years ago to 2005 in Silicon Valley where I returned after 11 years of living in Europe. But back in 2005 there were a few people who spotted the trend before others and one of the true pioneers was (and continues to be) Jeff Clavier who founded SoftTech VC. It is, of course, a very recent phenomenon.

Seed Stage 150

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

Before weighing in on the subject I would point out one thing that should be obvious to many of you – the iPhone was originally launched in 2007 in an exclusive partnership with AT&T and this was vital to both Apple and AT&T and was a hard negotiation throughout 2005 and 2006.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

An obvious example is Google who may have gotten less market attention if there would have been 8 well-financed competitors during the 2001-2005 timeframe. Those with strong business models suddenly stand out when the tide goes out.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

These two trends had a major impact on the computing industry from 2000-2005 but the effects weren’t yet felt by the VC industry. Every startup I knew in 2005 (when I started my second company) was using this. The Emergence of “Open Cloud&# Infrastructure.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

But that’s harder to build in 2016 than it was in say 2005. ” In the airline industry they have the ability to withhold inventory unless you’re an 800-pound gorilla where they can’t afford not to have your traffic while their competitors have it.

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

In 2005, Meebo started connected users across other websites. Because you put ads in front of user for a long time and cover the whole screen Meebo click-rates are very high. From listening to feedback after launch, it was clear that users wanted a chat experience on other websites too.

Connecticut 286

Connecticut Cofounder Silicon Valley Web 286

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2011

I was significantly wiser by 2005 when I started my second company. It’s no surprise that I got a bit fawked on my first company. There was no guide. VCs were negotiating with asymmetric information. Brad & Jason’s, Venture Deals , aims to change this. Even so, I found myself reading Feld.com every day.

Liquidation Preference 304

Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Cap Table Participating Preferred 304

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. I am very grateful to my friend Zoli Erdos for finding this retro posting for me at web.archive.org. I had kept a personal blog for more than a year and was new at keeping a professional blog.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

I lived in London from 1997-2005 and for 6 of those years ran my startup based out of London. After a recent discussion I had with Steve Blank it made me remember that I had left off one of the most critical factors – a culture of failure. I remember this lesson well.

Community 350

Community Silicon Valley Detroit Chicago 350

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2012

This was 2005 when I had no exits under my belt, no blogs … nobody was looking. Nearly everybody in the DC region had told me, “You must meet Mike. He knows every startup & VC in town.” ” He was generous with his time with me and helpful. He was a mensch.

Los Angeles 299

Los Angeles Early Stage DC Silicon Valley 299

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 24, 2016

I signed up for Facebook before many – in 2005 – when I first moved back to the US. These are mostly people who joined in college or their early 20s and FB sort of became like LinkedIn – the place where you were connected to too many people you didn’t really know. I was always more the latter.

Social Network 150

Social Network eCommerce Conversion Networking 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

We have an entire generation of startup founders who don’t have muscle memory from getting their burn rates back into shape from 2008/09 or 2001-2005. Some companies have to go first. Others will follow. But many of us have been there. It’s not fun. But it’s necessary.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate San Francisco Private Equity LP 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Let’s call these cards 1996-99 and 2005-08. But if 2011 & 2012 look more like 2008-2009 than 2010 or 2005-2007 then one of the most important skills of angel investors will be whether they can get their companies financed (or ramen profitable, but this is harder to sustain over a long period of time).

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Cap Table Early Stage Deal Flow 152

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2013

We built our product at Koral in 2005 with this design philosophy in mind. Do actual usability testing and make sure to include users not from your ordinary circle of friends or similar cohort. What you assumed was “novice functionality” will likely be too hard.

Product 408

Product San Francisco Green Technical Review 408

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 20, 2009

Or again here in Consumer Affairs dating back to 2005. Many of these complaints stem from the charges individuals found on their credit card statements.&# Background. I was home visiting my father in Sacramento.

Direct Marketing 263

Direct Marketing Private Equity Sacramento Marketing 263

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

Let’s call these cards 1996-99, 2005-08 and 2010+. You can’t mistake that for being the one who wins the poker tournament or even comes home with more money than you brought to the game. The lucky cards some angels are dealt with mostly have to do with the timing of their investments. got picked up early without raising a lot of VC.

Angel Investor 284

Angel Investor Early Stage Cap Table Deal Flow 284

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

30% of all real income growth in 2005–2015 was from Latinos (U.S. Latino purchasing power will reach $1.7 trillion in 2020 (U.S. Census), surpassing total expenditure of even the much sought after Millennial population. Advertisers, wake the f**k up. Census) who will represent 40% of the entire US workforce in just 5 years (Pew Research).

United States 269

United States North America South America Los Angeles 269

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

He turned me down for a job in 2005. It’s an entrepreneur with whom I’ve been wanting to work for 6 years. Actually, longer than anybody else in the US I’ve hoped to work with. Yesterday I offered him a term sheet. I spent time today negotiating it with him and getting my partners bought into some changes.

Email 314

Email Product Term Sheet Portfolio 314

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

We funded one in 2005 and lost a lot of money. Call me when you’re ready to leave.” ” Now they have a deep sigh when they hear what you’re actually working on. “Dude, we saw a bunch of those last year. Sorry, brah.”

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

He’s been at it since 2005. I founded it in 2005 at the age of 37. I believe this is wrong. Let me start with a couple of stories. A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal. We trade emails on the topic of entrepreneurship often. Fast forward to my second company.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. It is 2010. That means that they likely raised money at a particularly high price relative to 2010 prices.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Common Stock Dividend 289

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

style euphoria that swept the Valley beginning in 2005. The success of the iPhone – The success of the iPhone and more importantly the App Store has led to an increase in early-stage VC fundings that mirror the Web 2.0 Along with Facebook and Twitter investments (see below) this wave is more diverse but no less speculative.

IPO 255

IPO Investment Bankers Venture Capital Marketing 255

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

LP contributions to VC firms shrunk from 2000 and by 2005-2008 had stabilized to around $30 billion per year. Put simply, more deals and fewer venture capitalists mean better access to deals, more stability for winners and great returns for the best in our industry. Money flowing into our industry has also massively downsized.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Criteo was founded in 2005 in France; now based in Palo Alto, CA. Criteo – Provider of online ad retargeting services and personalized recommendation service. Leverages persistent cookie to follow a user and display recurring display advertising that matches a previous transaction intent or behavior.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

When I saw what BuddyTV is working on and how long they’ve been the market (since 2005) I realized that this has huge potential to help disrupt the television market. I re-connected with Andy Liu the founder & CEO of BuddyTV – the largest destination for social TV enthusiasts on the web. No Dave S. =

Seattle 317

Seattle Silicon Valley Technical Review Los Angeles 317

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. I’ve raised in boom markets and when everybody thought the Internet was a fraud. I’ve raised seed rounds and A-D rounds. And of course I’ve sat on the other side of the table: As a VC.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Spark Capital is relatively new to VC (founded in 2005) yet has become one of the hottest new VCs having invested in Twitter, Tumblr, AdMeld, Boxee, KickApps and many more companies. RockYou (US) was founded in Redwood City in November 2005 by Lance Tokuda and Jia Shen. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Los Angeles Oakland Asia 217

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

In 2005 they realized that this business was going to evaporate over night with the introduction of YouTube. How did the Introduction of YouTube affect your business? It changed everything. JibJab has an ad model that relied on exclusive distribution deals with the big portals.

Viral 303

Viral Investment Bankers Video Business Model 303

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

And I’m enjoying being part of the two-way conversation again as I was from 2005-2007. I’m enjoying the creative process of getting my own personal thoughts down in writing. Thank you, Twitter.

Social Network 219

Social Network Social Media Forecast 219

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

There was a meme that started going around LPs around 2005 that “I’m not sure LA is really its own venture market” and some LPs actually believed that. ” (effectively a “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” sort of argument).

Sales 150

Sales Silicon Valley Las Vegas Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2010

billion (plus an earn out that could have totalled $4 billion but didn’t in the end) in 2005 before selling 65% of the company in 2009 for $1.9 This happened in Europe way before the US because to make any call out of the country was a paid call whereas in the US you had a lot of “all you can eat&# national plans. billion).

Term Sheet 266

Term Sheet Europe Wiki Cloud 266

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Companies raised too much money in 2005-08 and had high burn rates. The people left standing had a compelling vision to build companies and we backed many in 2009. When this period was fresh, in Sept 2009, I wrote a very detailed assessment of what I thought had just happened. tl;dr summary. VCs were very active in this period.

Stock 305

Stock Technical Review Marketing Greece 305

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 13, 2010

I started blogging in 2005 and then re-started blogging about a year ago. In my mind public debate is the highest form of democracy. It proves that you really have freedom of speech. And there is relationship between debating and blogging. Let me explain. It’s a great experiment for me.

.Net 250

.Net Social Media Silicon Valley Mobile 250

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2010

When I started my second company in 2005 we decided to do everything differently. We put all of this infrastructure in an Exodus web hosting facility and had to pay for rack space, bandwidth and some management services if a disk failed, for example. By then the open-source movement had really developed.

Cloud 343

Cloud Technical Review Database Semantic 343

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2017

The arguments “for” of many market participants ring as hollow as they did in 2005 when they told me I was an idiot for believing that Florida real estate prices would drop or in the dotcom 1.0 boom where many companies had deeply inflated values.

Government 280

Government Distribution Stock United States 280