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. He’s been at it since 2005. I founded it in 2005 at the age of 37. It’s that simple.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

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. These people understand that the nature of startups have changed.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

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. Firms like Baseline, Felicis, ff Ventures, Founder Collective, Freestyle, HomeBrew, IA Ventures, K9, Lowercase, NextView, Resolute, Rincon, Crosscut and the countless other great firms we all now know didn’t exist.

Seed Stage 150

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2011

Founders don’t often think about “primary&# stock vs, “fully diluted&# stock in terms of voting rights. I was significantly wiser by 2005 when I started my second company. Sounds harmless enough. I never did. VCs always know the voting thresholds and no number in your term sheet is there by accident.

Liquidation Preference 304

Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Cap Table Participating Preferred 304

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

But that’s harder to build in 2016 than it was in say 2005. Read plenty of “what went wrong” eulogies by founders and see what you can learn. Validate data. Validate firmly held positions. Know your planned sources of differentiation and adjust as you learn. ”

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

For starters let me use “CEO” as a proxy to include her “inner circle” which might mean co-founders or might just mean senior execs of the business. The Mind of the Founder. We funded one in 2005 and lost a lot of money. The mind of a founder is wired differently than most people. Sorry, brah.”

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. 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

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. When things are hard the best leaders have teams that will rally around them. Some companies have to go first. Others will follow. But many of us have been there.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate San Francisco Private Equity LP 150

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

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.

Angel Investor 284

Angel Investor Early Stage Cap Table Deal Flow 284

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

S**t’s About to Get Real Herb Scannell is teaming up with mitú’s founder & president Beatriz Acevedo who oversees content production, talent development and social impact. 30% of all real income growth in 2005–2015 was from Latinos (U.S. His son then went on to raise more than $1.1 billion to finance US startups.)

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. I try to take time out of my week to occasionally meet with startup founders – even those that haven’t been introduced. 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.

Email 314

Email Product Term Sheet Portfolio 314

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

APRIL 14, 2010

Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. management, founders, angel investors) get any money. If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. It is 2010.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Common Stock Dividend 289

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

. $5mm in Series A – Investors: GRP (Mark Suster)(lead), Greycroft Partners (Dana Settle), and Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills) – Read more: TechCrunch , SoCalTech. Swipely – Blippy competitor founded by TellMe founder, Angus Davis, in Fall 2009. Criteo was founded in 2005 in France; now based in Palo Alto, CA.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

style euphoria that swept the Valley beginning in 2005. With First Round Capital, Sequoia and Founders Fund obviously a lot of respected investors think highly of its potential. Along with Facebook and Twitter investments (see below) this wave is more diverse but no less speculative. Seems an obvious fit.

IPO 255

IPO Investment Bankers Venture Capital Marketing 255

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. You need to build genuine relationships with these portfolio startup founders as well as trust with them and the rest will follow. It’s just a part of your ongoing activities as a founder. Always be fund raising.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

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. Working with a family member (Evan, the co-founder is his brother)? How did the Introduction of YouTube affect your business? It changed everything. I know this because Gregg has told me several times off camera.

Viral 303

Viral Investment Bankers Video Business Model 303

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. Investors are the “who’s who” including: Steve Case, Ron Conway, Jack Dorsey, Dave Morin, Betaworks, Founder Collective, AOL Ventures. - $1 million seed round.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Los Angeles Oakland Asia 217

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2010

When I started my second company in 2005 we decided to do everything differently. Factual was created in 2007 by Gil Elbaz, the founder of Applied Semantics. 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.

Cloud 343

Cloud Technical Review Database Semantic 343

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

That is why I invited the Founder & CEO, Jonah Peretti , to come talk at the 2017 Upfront Summit and make the case himself. Around 2001 Jonah was studying at MIT Media Lab and began running experiments in viral stories in an era before smart phones (2007) and before social networks took off (2004–2007) and before YouTube (2005).

Media 210

Media Los Angeles Russia Viral 210