Agile VC

OCTOBER 5, 2012

I had the pleasure of giving a talk on entrepreneurship at UPenn last week, which happens to be my alma mater. I’m always thrilled to speak with undergraduates who are interested in startups. One of the most common questions I get is “What’s the best career path to becoming a founder someday?” The very short answer is that most people who are ultimately founders (or usually co-founders ) of a company “tack” towards that goal in a series of career steps.

Founder 217

Founder Cofounder Later Stage Operations 217

Agile VC

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

There’s a lot of good suggestions out there for how early stage startups can approach (or improve) board meetings. Some of my favorites are from Brad Feld (also this one from him ), Andy Payne , and Steve Blank. All three have perspective as both entrepreneurs and as investors / advisors in the startup board room. There’s a range of different approaches from the somewhat traditional to the more radical (e.g. single slide board mtgs).

Startup 209

Startup Early Stage Leadership Conversion 209

Agile VC

JULY 19, 2012

Last week I wrote about some of the common factors that have led great VC firms to stumble or even fade from existence entirely. I wanted to follow-up with some observations of paths to greatness for a select group of firms. Also it’s also worth noting a few clever hacks that some firms have taken which may not assure greatness, but can help avoid the pitfalls that have ensnared past firms.

Cofounder 193

Cofounder Limited Partner Early Stage LP 193

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Urbanization of Startups. April 13, 2012. I was back in the SF Bay Area last week for a bit of work and a bit of fun. I spent some time with some startups in San Francisco proper, as opposed to the heart of Silicon Valley (see Note 1).

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Agile VC

MAY 23, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. The End of “Internet” Companies. May 23, 2012. Al Gore's 2012 Induction to the Internet Hall of Fame. In the wake of the undue frenzy leading up to and now ex post recriminations about Facebook’s IPO, the mainstream media and normal folks keep wondering if the non-existent “bubble” for internet companies has now popped.

Internet 182

Internet Silicon Valley IPO Seed Stage 182

Agile VC

DECEMBER 6, 2012

A little more inside baseball from the VC biz… why VC’s rarely make “crossover” investments, with capital from multiple funds the VC firm manages invested in a single startup (see note 1). I was talking with an entrepreneur recently about this phenomenon. This person is an experienced CEO and a veteran of several startups, yet appreciating this nuance of how VC’s operate their business was relatively unfamiliar to him.

LP 178

LP Balance Sheet Differentiation Limited Partner 178

Agile VC

MAY 21, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. The $100M+ Club: A New Universe of Buyers. May 21, 2012. For the last 5-7 years the universe of potential acquirers web-based businesses has been fairly concentrated. On the consumer facing side, the number of companies doing multiple acquisitions of $100M+ was extremely short… Google, eBay/PayPal, Amazon, and Microsoft are at the top of the list.

Acquisition 162

Acquisition Silicon Valley B2B Seed Stage 162

Agile VC

AUGUST 9, 2012

Draw something… other than this painful chart. Zynga’s faced a lot of pressure in the public markets recently. The company’s lost nearly 80% of its value from the peak earlier this year, in the run up to Facebook’s IPO, and currently trades below $3/share… a fraction of it’s IPO price of $10. That much we all know.

Stock 160

Stock LBO .Net Valuation 160

Agile VC

AUGUST 1, 2012

i*Pad [eye- pad ] noun – a $700 version of Words With Friends. About 6-12 months ago you could hardly throw a rock in the startup ecosystem without hitting a VC expressing their enthusiasm for “mobile” Now the frenzy about mobile has extended into the mass media and public equity markets, though with trepidation as often as excitement.

Mobile 160

Mobile Advertising Bandwidth Web 160

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

[ This also appears as a guest post at PandoDaily ]. Over the weekend, I read Sarah Lacy’s PandoDaily article that the VC shakeout is taking too long. It’s rather thoughtful and definitely worth reading if you haven’t had a chance to yet. There are some obvious structural reasons why a shakeout in the venture capital industry takes a long time.

LP 154

LP Portfolio Venture Capital IRR 154

Agile VC

AUGUST 14, 2012

We’re pleased to announced NextView’s investment in SkyVu Entertainment, along with Lightbank and angel investors. SkyVu is a mobile game company best known for their hit franchise BATTLE BEARS … a series of shooter type games that are action-oriented with an edgy theme, that still remain kid/teen friendly in terms of content. There are countless mobile game studios out there, and we’ve looked at our fair share of gaming opportunities here at NextView.

Mobile 140

Mobile Angel Investor Networking Revenue 140

Agile VC

JUNE 25, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Our Investment in Cloze. June 25, 2012. Today Cloze has started to talk more publicly about their funding and also is starting to open their product more broadly. The company has been in stealth mode for the last couple months but I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about NextView’s investment in the company and our enthusiasm to be working with co-founders

Cofounder 140

Cofounder Stealth Silicon Valley Mobile 140

Agile VC

MAY 16, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Opportunistic & Thematic Investing. May 16, 2012. VC investors take different approaches to finding new investments. I tend to think of it as a continuum with purely thematic investing at one end and a purely opportunistic approach at the other.

Seed Stage 124

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Syndicate 124

Agile VC

APRIL 27, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Ethos: What ‘Blank Canvas’ Means to NextView. April 27, 2012. As many of you may know, we have a section on the NextView website called “Ethos” where we describe five key principles to how we operate.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 124

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Ethos: What Golazo Means to NextView. February 7, 2012. Those of you who’ve visited the NextView website may have seen a Ethos section where we describe five tenets of how we approach things… Golazo, Authentic, Blank Canvas, Invited Guest, and Tribe.

South Korea 124

South Korea Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 124

Agile VC

MARCH 30, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Is “Data” a Business Model? March 30, 2012. Several years ago I wrote a post about the three business models of the consumer web : commerce, advertising, and user-paid premium services. The consumer web landscape has changed meaningfully since I wrote that in 2006.

Business Model 113

Business Model Silicon Valley Advertising B2B 113

Agile VC

MARCH 18, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Why Twitter is A Media Company. March 18, 2012. CEO Dick Costolo famously said that Twitter is not a media company about six weeks ago at the AllThingsD conference. To be fair, Costolo said that Twitter isn’t a media company but is “in the media business” To some that may be a distinction without a difference.

Media 113

Media Advertising Silicon Valley Revenue 113

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Are Google-Scale Outcomes More Frequent? January 27, 2012. Something has clearly changed within the last 5-6 years in terms of the speed with which monster startups are created in the software and internet space. As a result of a convergence of many factors (lean startup methodology, broadband & smartphone penetration, social web, cloud computing, etc), breakout sta

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Tech IPOs Are Back – So Now What? March 8, 2012. In the fall of 2010 I laid out reasons why all the tech “bubble” chatter was really more the hallmark of a reasonably sustained boom , and then revisited the topic almost one year ago to the day.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 28, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Smoke vs Fire: Handling “Preemptive” Interest From VCs. February 28, 2012. Startups in NextView’s portfolio frequently receive inbound interest from other VC investors who are intrigued about what they’re doing, and I often talk with other early-stage entrepreneurs how to approach similar situations.

Early Stage 100

Early Stage Syndicate Syndication Silicon Valley 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Final Close: The Story Behind NextView’s Own Fundraise. February 21, 2012. We recently completed the final close of NextView Ventures, LP and we’re excited about both our progress to date and our plans for the future.

LP 100

LP Seed Stage Silicon Valley Limited Partner 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Blocking & Tackling. February 16, 2012. They say the small stuff you do to accomplish a big goal is often the most important, even if a lot of isn’t glamorous or produces very small incremental benefit. The football analogy is blocking by the offensive line and tackling by the defense, as opposed to the more sensational touchdown pass or or diving interceptio

Silicon Valley 100

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 9, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Source, Select, Win. February 9, 2012. The VC industry is a competitive business. So are most disciplines within the investing world, but the fundamental framework and manner in which we compete in VC is pretty different. In the modern age public market investors, whether they be focused on equities (stocks), fixed income (bonds), currencies, commodities, or derivatives

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Framework Silicon Valley Early Stage 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Facebook S-1: The Most Anticipated IPO in a Decade. February 2, 2012. The interminable wait is over, and Facebook’s S-1 was filed yesterday afternoon. I recently wrote a post noting that while the growth cycle of startups has clearly accelerated in the last 5 years, the number of truly monster new businesses (a company ultimately worth $75-100B) remains about the s

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Agile VC

JANUARY 18, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Seven Reasons to Become a Founding Entrepreneur. January 18, 2012. I think there are tons of reasons to be a founding entrepreneur… some good, some bad, some ultimately inconsequential. Being a startup founder isn’t for everyone ultimately, in fact it probably isn’t for most people.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Cofounder Silicon Valley Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

JANUARY 12, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. The Difference Between “No” and “Not Yet” January 12, 2012. Even the best entrepreneurs often hear “no” from potential investors. I’ve blogged before how this remains one of the hardest parts of my job.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 100