View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. Patience is a virtue.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

The first will be commodity businesses that are valued for their ability to execute their current business model. The second class will be firms with a demonstrated ability to continually innovate and reinvent their business models. These innovations do not require change in a company’s existing business model.

Private Equity 330

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 330

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

Companies pursuing innovation can Buy, Build, Partner or use Open Innovation. The first, the notion of the “ ambidextrous organization ” from O’Reilly and Tushman , posits that companies that want to do continuous innovation need to execute their core business model while innovating in parallel. Fast forward to today.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

View from Seed

JULY 19, 2019

And additionally, my partners and I use other, more differentiated, lenses like asking if a startup has an “ unfair distribution advantage.” JDCC stands for “Jaw-Dropping customer value through a Competition-Crushing business model.”. Asking “Is it JDCC?” Go (re)read that post. Go (re)read that post.

Boston 149

Boston B2B Early Stage Portfolio 149

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. FLEXIBLE VC VS. OTHER VENTURE CAPITAL MODELS.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Union Square Ventures The next morning I got to spend time with Brad Burnham , partner at Union Square Ventures talking about their investment strategy and insights about web-based businesses. Bill and his partner Fred Wilson have invested in ~30 or so companies with 27 still active. It’s an impressive portfolio.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

David Teten

JANUARY 11, 2020

They’re taking a $1m check from me, or giving $5m to me as a limited partner. Other coinvestors: Limited partners, other VCs who are coinvestors, private equity funds which are potential growth-stage investors, etc. High-potential prospective employees of portfolio companies. Jourdan Urbach, Managing Partner of Brandt & Co.

Social Media 60

Social Media Technical Review Media Private Equity 60

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

I’m excited to let you know that David Norris joined us today as my Partner. He’s been COO of some amazing businesses, including HouseTrip and LiveBookings, and will now help our founders succeed just as he helped the founders of those companies. Today I am proud to join Forward Partners as a VC.

Partner 91

Partner Early Stage Business Model HTML 91

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 16, 2021

Note that most of the density in these landscapes is around ‘business model’ – ad revenue, marketplaces, memberships, affiliate. For example, HourOne (disclosure: Remagine Ventures portfolio) only requires text to create high quality synthetic video using human characters. Creative Automation.

Startup 207

Startup Social Media Venture Capital Audio 207

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Others believe that new business models are emerging that could replace venture capital all together. Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital IPO Mezzanine Early Stage 292

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) What Do VC’s Do? 3) invest in and take equity stakes in exchange for capital.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

www.allthingsdistributed.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

All Things Distributed Werner Vogels weblog on building scalable and robust distributed systems. Some of the largersoftware companies have successfully used this model with multiple CTOs who areseasoned technology experts and whose main task it is to be the bridge tocustomers.

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Syndicate Syndication 40

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Startups don’t fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers and a profitable business model. Look at the Product Development model and you might wonder, “Where are the customers?” customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) before you ship.

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Across our portfolio and in my own entrepreneurial experience, I have seen three main sales models work successfully in scaling B2B sales: 1) Enterprise; 2) Telephone; and 3) Developer-driven. The typical quota for a sales rep varies by type of business model (SaaS vs. perpetual), product gross margin (e.g.,

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

The best drivers apply the brakes just ahead of the curve (they take out excess costs), turn hard toward the apex of the curve (identify the short list of projects that will form the next business model), and accelerate hard out of the curve (spend and hire before markets have rebounded). Progressive. Image source ).

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

Four of the portfolio companies have had successful exits: CardMunch was acquired by LinkedIn , BackType was acquired by Twitter , IndexTank was acquired by LinkedIn , and just this week, card.io No three-way business models and no content, media, advertising-based companies. was acquired by PayPal.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

Four of the portfolio companies have had successful exits: CardMunch was acquired by LinkedIn , BackType was acquired by Twitter , IndexTank was acquired by LinkedIn , and just this week, card.io No three-way business models and no content, media, advertising-based companies. was acquired by PayPal.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

But in business, you want a lot of partners. However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and. 2) Market .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Ben's Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2010

When my partner Marc asked me whether we should be backing an entrepreneur who is already rich, I replied: “it depends on whether we should believe my beautiful theory or my lying eyes.” The challenge is building, maintaining, and distributing integrations for every pair-wise set of every version of every application in the world.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Memphis Software Review Software 63

View from Seed

JANUARY 24, 2018

When we create new platform initiatives, our team tries to think about how we can be the most impactful with our portfolio companies. Today, we’re thrilled to announce a new program that we hope will help our portfolio companies with two of these bullets. Building a great product.

Operations 176

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 176

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

August 2010 Two years ago I wrote about what I called " a huge, unexploitedopportunity in startup funding :" the growing disconnect betweenVCs, whose current business model requires them to invest largeamounts, and a large class of startups that need less than theyused to. Get funded by Y Combinator. The stickingpoint is board seats.

Startup 93

Startup Valuation Non-Compete Deal Flow 93

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

Management has the wrong pedigree, is geographically undesirable, competes in the wrong industry, and/or has a business model that lacks "scalability credibility" with the venture community. At the end of the period, all profits and proceeds are distributed to the various partners on a pre-determined split.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

(written by Philipp von dem Knesebeck , Managing Partner, Blue Future Partners (bluefp.com, @bluefutureteam ), and David Teten ). Based on this paper, Blue Future Partners and PEVCTech recently completed a large-scale survey to find out which tools are most commonly used by venture capital firms.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

K9 Ventures

APRIL 28, 2010

K9 expects to be an active investor in portfolio companies and will typically make only 4-6 new investments per year. No advertising, content or media businesses which may have a three-way business model, but rather companies which deliver direct value to paying customers. No retail, no cleantech, no biotech etc.

Seed Stage 61

Seed Stage San Francisco IP Portfolio 61

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 31, 2022

Mature startups with proven business models and the potential to reach the public markets within a few years will be the safest place to park any new venture capital that comes into the ecosystem. The pressure to protect portfolio startups seen as potential fund returners will be profound.

Founder 173

Founder Technical Review Down Round Liquidation Preference 173

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Where in your area will you find land or a building with the right zoning, size, facilities, and access for bringing in raw materials, attracting customers, and/or shipping out finished beer for distribution? How wide do you want to grow production and distribution, or do you want to focus on selling over your own bar? Relationships.

Oregon 60

Oregon Jordan SBA Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

Scott Kupor is the managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he’s responsible for all operational aspects of running the firm. It doesn’t make your business idea a bad one if you conclude that VC isn’t right for you. Morgan credit card business to acquire tons of Square customers at a very low cost. No need to name names.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2019

These products will be distributed to remote yet extremely viable areas, where the market is appreciative of readily-available, good-quality brew. With this money, they plan to expand its distribution to selected metro areas within the state of Oregon. Initial plans are to produce three main lines of beer. Martin Cove Brewing Company.

Oregon 24

Oregon Jordan Software Review Distribution 24

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

The CDROM content business in the early 1990’s was one of the many of the long line of venture capital fads. Reply steveblank , on July 2, 2009 at 12:22 pm Said: Aamir, The game business is different from the tech business in some obvious and non obvious ways. - Make game, market, sell, profit? We understood none of this.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

VC Cafe

AUGUST 23, 2022

Tech advancements are making it easier than ever to create, edit, distribute content than ever before (more on this in my post on ‘ the opportunities for creative automatio n’). Otherwise, you are stuck being a micro-SMB SaaS, which just isn’t a good business model. Creator platforms (Source: Doug Shapiro).

Social Media 217

Social Media Revenue Video Distribution 217

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Do we believe “startup-driven” innovation (innovation that comes from relationships with external, early-stage companies) should be part of the corporate innovation portfolio? Wants to promote intrapreneurship to extend its business model and retain creative employees like Google, Amazon, and Facebook do. Does it get spun out?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 22, 2017

I have come up with several business names over the years and one of my recent ventures had a clever name that I thought fit perfect for your blog. I sat down with my partner and we brainstormed the name for our business. I am the Founder of Sonjara, Inc – a woman owned small business in Northern Virginia.

Naming 48

Naming Entrepreneur LLC Software Review 48

VC Cafe

JUNE 18, 2012

Check out the 28 Israeli startups coming to London next week to showcase at the Innovate Israel 2012 portfolio. With 100% commitment to the digital world – Craze is using the latest technologies and constantly developing new methods (some patent pending) for selling and distributing music and videos.

Securities and Exchange Commission 133

Securities and Exchange Commission Technical Review Software Review 133

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

MARCH 31, 2011

No matter what you are involved with today, you can easily establish a niche website to add yet another passive stream of income to your portfolio and further diversify your risk across several income baskets. The business model is simple. Since this is a one and done business model, you don’t have to keep updating your sitemap.

HTML 92

HTML Social Bookmarking Affiliate Engineer 92

Professor VC

DECEMBER 8, 2015

one company running out of cash and another with cash but searching for a business model). Often times those involve trading within a venture capital portfolio or between two venture firms portfolios. I was a Limited Partner in Angel Investors II (Ron Conway's angel fund) that was an investor in Confinity.

Merger 28

Merger LP IPO Redemption 28

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com. He also combed the portfolios of VC firms and talked to people at start-ups, he says. David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners has stuck with Mr. Dreymann.

Venture Capital 107

Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

Investment theses are just hypotheses; the portfolio shows how accurate the hypothesis was. Foundry Group, investing primarily in “ Software and Internet ”, follows six major themes, e.g., Human Computer Interaction (HCI) or Distribution. 2) Business model-defined funds. software” and “deeptech”), and so on.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78