This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

In 2010, Antonio Garcia Martinez, the founder of AdGrok, wrote, “New York will always be a tech backwater, I don’t care what Chris Dixon or Ron Conway or Paul Graham say.” Top founders want to live in a place where employees are serious about working hard. Startup founders always need help. Angels can’t do it alone.

Community 172

Community Miami Portland Startup 172

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Many assume it was a cakewalk, based on the success LinkedIn has enjoyed over time and the current stature of our founder/CEO Reid Hoffman (now Chairman). I thought I’d revisit it and share the story… First, you have to rewind mentally to early 2003. But keep in mind at this point Reid’s a first-time CEO.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

What everyone can agree on, though, is that there are definitely more seed and early stage funds now than ever before, and more people willing to give money to young companies looking to make it big. Manu Kumar is Founder and Chief Firestarter at K9 Ventures. But just who are these funds and venture capitalists that run them?

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Early Stage Portfolio Software Engineering 48

The Startup Lawyer

OCTOBER 26, 2010

Blake is the founder of CoHabitat, a startup community and hacker co-working space that’s become a hub for startup entrepreneurs, developers, and creatives. Dynamo Labs was the first recipient of fbFund, a grant fund operated by the Founders Fund, Accel Partners, and Facebook. Gabriella Draney, Tech Wildcatters.

Dallas 60

Dallas Intellectual Property Fort Worth Japan 60

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2016

By the end of 2004 I had brought on two co-founders: John Vars – who is now the Chief Product Office at TaskRabbit, and Steven Reading took over Sales and Revenue. Though I should point out was still doing client work for OneMatchFire until mid-2005 until the business could pay full salaries. TR: This was an easy one for me.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Startup Cofounder SMS 48

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

A few years before all this scandalous VC behavior occurred, in 2005 Paul Graham ) started Y Combinator. And in addition to helping each other, they also started funding each other , and even helped YC select future batches of founders. and no, we didn’t. but the food was awesome, & the PR wasn’t bad either). (and

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

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. They built industrial-scale funds dedicated to backing early-stage startups with $500k rather than $5 million.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

David Teten

FEBRUARY 28, 2012

Michael Smith, leader of the Social Innovation team at the Case Foundation , introduced the Foundation as a non-profit started in 1997 by Steve Case (AOL co-founder) and his wife, Jean Case. Case Foundation didn’t have a website until 2005, although founded 1997. Early stage startups are <5 yrs old.

America 144

America DC Startup Aggregator 144

The Next Web

MARCH 8, 2014

Jason Lemkin is the Managing Director at Storm Ventures , a venture capital firm focusing on early-stage enterprise and IT companies, including MobileIron , Marketo and GuideSpark. From the standpoint of a founder, the life of a venture capitalist can seem very, very different. You and me? We’re not so different.

Partner 138

Partner Burn Rate Early Stage IPO 138

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

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

The presentation was on outsourcing generally, not just software engineering and the audience was very early stage companies (some yet to be founded). But did you know that founder Markus Frind has just 3 employees for his $10MM+ revenue business? In the early days no one can tell your story better than you. Start a blog.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

VC Cafe

AUGUST 24, 2022

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and CEO. Paul Krugman, a Noble Prize winning economist, predicted that by 2005 it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy will be no greater than the Fax machine… Source: (you can check the authenticity on Snopes). The potential for the Metaverse remains huge.

France 89

France Spain Stock Cofounder 89

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2015

If you are a 20-something tech entrepreneur you could be forgiven for thinking that seed-stage investors, Angellist Syndicates and widely available angel money always existed. Let me take you back just 10 years ago to 2005 in Silicon Valley where I returned after 11 years of living in Europe. It is, of course, a very recent phenomenon.

Seed Stage 150

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

Chris Dixon made the point that he thinks investors should look for the founders to have the domain knowledge rather than them having domain knowledge themselves. But while I prefer a certain naive optimism in founders I can’t see the logic that this extends to angel investors. And the best early-stage investors know this.

Angel Investor 284

Angel Investor Early Stage Cap Table Deal Flow 284

Feld Thoughts

JULY 12, 2016

If we fund an early stage startup company today and it’s hugely successful, it’ll be coming into its own in 2025. This is dangerous, especially for founders. Its founders sometimes give the impression of still being a bit shaken. Ponder that for a moment. I’ll be 60 in 2025.

Boston 70

Boston Cofounder Early Stage Founder 70

Feld Thoughts

JULY 31, 2014

In 2007, when we set out to raise our first Foundry Group fund, early stage tech VC was in the shitter. No one believed that you could make any money as an early stage VC and when we went out to raise our first fund, we heard over and over again that we were on a fools errand. But is wasn’t always this way.

LP 155

LP Advisory Board Venture Capital Early Stage 155

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Chris Dixon made the point that he thinks investors should look for the founders to have the domain knowledge rather than them having domain knowledge themselves. But I prefer a certain naive optimism in founders but I can’t see that this extends to angel investors. Let’s call these cards 1996-99 and 2005-08.

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Cap Table Early Stage Deal Flow 152

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. Well, for starters I don’t believe there was the ubiquity of broadband that existed in 2004-2005.

Technology 60

Technology Flash Early Stage Cofounder 60

Software By Rob

JANUARY 8, 2019

Hundreds and hundreds of tweets, re-tweets, likes, Hacker News upvotes, email responses…it was immediately obvious that there is pent up demand for this kind of alternative early-stage startup funding. 2: We Focus on Early Stage SaaS. 2: We Focus on Early Stage SaaS. Previously On.TinySeed.

Early Stage 46

Early Stage Valuation Seed Capital Revenue 46

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

In 2005, David Choe was invited to paint a number of murals at Facebook’s HQ in Palo Alto. This type of stock is typically given to founders and early employees with the stock value is near zero. Consider your other options, and tread carefully in the early stages of business! Finding good employees is critical.

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

There’s no doubt (at least anecdotally) that the pace of VC investments in early-stage technology companies has picked up in the past few months. I hear from several sources that Sequoia is very active in the market aggressively chasing several deals and even driving up prices on some early-stage deals.

IPO 255

IPO Investment Bankers Venture Capital Marketing 255

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 20, 2013

20 years ago, the classic startup model was to have young founders start a breakthrough company, then bring in “grey hair” in the form of experienced executives once it was time to scale the business. In other words, Ben asserts that bringing in a professional CEO should be a last resort for a founder. During the dot com era, Yahoo!’s

Founder 78

Founder Hiring Cofounder Hawaii 78

The Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

As the number of startups has exploded over the last 30-40 years best practices have been developed that can be shared from one early stage company to the next. This trend accelerated through the emergence of VC and operator blogging in the early 2000s. . Entrepreneurship is becoming more science and less art.

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

genylabs.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Member since 01/2005. Before you agree to take equity in lieu of cash, you need to understand that any individual early stage start-up company equity is most likely going to be worthless. what rights and preferences the founders and the other investors have. September 2011. August 2011. April 2011. March 2011.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

Professor VC

JUNE 6, 2008

It seems appropriate to have this discussion as Kent Desormeaux grabs Big Browns reins and goes after the Triple Crown tomorrow at Belmont.There is an age old debate in the venture business on whether it is better to bet on the horse (business/market) or the jockey (management team/founders). Do whatever you want with the founders".

San Jose 28

San Jose Technical Review Norway Angel Investor 28

Professor VC

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

With all of the new ways to see early companies such as TechCrunch and YCombinator, I had a feeling that much of the luster was gone and debated whether it was worth the time to attend.The last time I went to DEMO was in 2005 for the launch of one of my companies, iControl Networks.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review San Jose Angel Investor Silicon Valley 38

Austin Startup

JANUARY 14, 2011

Raul’s contribution to PetsMD as a member of our Advisory Board for the last year has been outstanding,” said Tina Cannon Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer. PetsMD Inc., “His entrepreneurial online experience as Vice President with Travelocity has been invaluable in helping to sharpen PetsMD’s strategic focus.

Advisory Board 63

Advisory Board Merger LLC Europe 63

VC Cafe

MARCH 4, 2024

Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia ( source ) Michael Eisenberg, co-founder of Aleph, an Israeli venture firm, said in a recent post: “What is the elevator pitch for investing in Israel for the next decade? credit rating forecast dropped in November, and since then the S&P 500 index has jumped by 15%.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital 78

Ben's Blog

APRIL 7, 2021

And since VC dollars tend to concentrate around high-tech R&D areas, it’s notable that more than 90% of the nation’s innovation-sector growth (2005-2017) is accounted for by just five metro areas — Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and San Diego. Private capital Seed, or very early-stage startup capital, is inherently local.

Silicon Valley 36

Silicon Valley Non-Compete San Francisco Government 36

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I gave him the same advice I give nearly all over-worked, control-freak, do-everything-yourself startup founders: “Your number one priority isn’t any of these things. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder. It’s a very cool vibe at Founder’s Coop. Passionate Entrepreneurs & Ambassadors.

Seattle 317

Seattle Silicon Valley Technical Review Los Angeles 317

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. 5mm in Series A – Investors: GRP (Mark Suster)(lead), Greycroft Partners (Dana Settle), and Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills) – Read more: TechCrunch , SoCalTech.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

Professor VC

APRIL 11, 2008

I started working with the founders of iControl at the concept stage, prior to the first $100K of angel financing. In fact, for a good laugh, I just went back and checked our accounting system, and at the end of one quarter in 2005, we were down to $143 cash on the balance sheet.

San Jose 28

San Jose Angel Investor Venture Capital Balance Sheet 28

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 26, 2011

It feels a lot like NYC as a whole did back in 2005--a handful of relatively disconnected folks, a few marquee companies and a whole lot of pent up interest in doing something impactful in the local community. Android Backlash.

Technology 116

Technology Valuation Community Restful 116

Up and Running

APRIL 1, 2015

David Daneshgar, Gregg Weisstein, and Farbod Shoraka, the founders of BloomNation.com. But, of course, they need funding—and wouldn’t you know it, one of the founders is a world class poker player. So, from the consumer end, the founders believed they could do better. Creating a better experience for both florists and consumers.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Startup Cofounder Chicago 60

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

Howard Lindzon is Co-Founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information. With a unique vision for starting and successfully managing innovative companies, he is the Managing Partner of Social Leverage, a holding company that invests in early stage web businesses.

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Technology North Carolina Switzerland 128

Altgate

JANUARY 4, 2009

His company is doing well and recently received a couple of term sheets for his first institutional round. As he was going through the process of negotiating with the potential investors, he said they were trying to set his expectations low.

Venture Capital 28

Venture Capital Term Sheet Private Equity Early Stage 28

Altgate

MARCH 8, 2009

There are three types of venture investing (early stage, “growth&# stage and later stage. Early stage means the first real investors in a startup when the team could be as small as 5-10 people. Early stage investing is complicated, hard work. But some will be saved. So what to do?

Later Stage 34

Later Stage Early Stage Venture Capital Portfolio 34