Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. So if it’s not necessarily revenue that’s preventing an investment, then WTF is traction?

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

Companies pursuing innovation can Buy, Build, Partner or use Open Innovation. Here the company executes a known business model (known customers, product features, competitors, pricing, distribution channel, supply chain, etc.) Horizon 3 is focused on unknown business models. Horizon 1 is the company’s core business.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

It helps them audit existing content portfolios (blog posts, landing pages, etc.) Marketing: Which channels are they active on? Build systems and processes that enable your team to create and distribute content seamlessly. YETI tells a consistent story across all channels. Messaging: What language do they use?

Marketing 109

Marketing Social Media Non-Compete Audience 109

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Barrington Coffee – Fort Point Channel. Flour – Bakery and Coffee Shop in Fort Point Channel. Custommade – Marketplace for Customer Products (NextView Portfolio Company). GrabCAD – 3D Community and Collaboration (NextView Portfolio Company). Insight Squared – SMB Business Intelligence (NextView Portfolio Company).

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

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

VC Cafe

APRIL 13, 2023

1 Media , a German broadcaster (and one of our investors at Remagine Ventures) is using Hour One , (also a Remagine Ventures portfolio company), to create short news stories from text. Combining these four elements and using generative AI technology is also what another portfolio company of ours does. For example, ProSiebenSat.1

Generative AI 78

Generative AI Software Review Audio Technical Review 78

YoungUpstarts

JULY 18, 2011

Founded less than two years ago by Internet entrepreneur and former model/actor Keith Britton and his partner actress Zoe Saldana , MyFDB allows users to freely browse credited magazine covers, editorials, and ad campaigns, as well as search credited people and company profiles. Who says technology isn’t fashionable?

Database 157

Database Distribution .Net Analytics 157

Occam's Razor

JULY 24, 2018

Some metrics apply across all channels, like Awareness, Consideration and Purchase Intent. Analyzing these metrics not only fundamentally changes marketing strategy (think tens of millions of dollars for large companies); their insights can change your company’s product portfolio, your customer engagement strategies and much more.

Analytics 93

Analytics Framework Metrics Algorithm 93

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

Yes an online video startup in ‘99 that helped large media companies encode and distribute their videos through portals. Richard De Silva is based in Menlo Park with three other partners, there and 5 partners in Boston. An example is Metacafe, a Highland Capital portfolio company. Startup after Iron Planet? (6:00

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

We realized that there were certain open positions in our portfolio we wanted to call extra attention to. One thing is for certain — you must have experience dealing with large scale distributed applications. A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round.

Part-Time VPE 92

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Engineer Sales 92

Reid Hoffman

JULY 15, 2020

My fellow investor at Greylock Partners, Saam Motamedi , recently joined me for a conversation with my Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh , who guided a discussion of how Covid-19 has and hasn’t changed how we invest at Greylock. The pandemic has accelerated progress in some obvious areas.

Cofounder 56

Cofounder Incubator Security Portfolio 56

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

When it comes to identifying what has changed, Labay continues: I’d think the first stop is analytics—who dropped off, what channels, who remained, etc., Use that intelligence to inform product portfolio and investment choices.”. This means more people behind a screen, which means more opportunity across distribution channels.

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 9, 2015

In addition, using the right language as well as favored color and design pattern or product portfolio is mandatory. Special characteristics are especially in the distribution of digital products: Until 2015, tax matters had been transacted in the vendor’s home country. Challenges In Operation. General Advice.

United Kingdom 100

United Kingdom Monaco Cyprus Cofounder 100

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 177

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 177

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. 1) Manage the firm .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

Had a great chat with Jim Armstrong who is a General Partner at Clearstone Venture Partners today on TWiVC. We also talked a lot about Geodelic , a portfolio company of Clearstone, who is trying to change the metaphor of how people discover location based information by partnering with large companies and brands.

IPO 236

IPO .Net Venture Capital Strategic Investors 236

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. How do I build a repeatable, scalable sales process that is like an industrial machine - not a crafts project? 3) Developer Driven Sales.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

1) Write a blog and optimize distribution channels. So, distribution channels are also important to build from day 1. It’s just as important to work on growing your distribution channels so that you can build your blog reach. 2) Guest post on other major blogs who already have distribution.

Audience 81

Audience Entrepreneur Distribution Widget 81

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 21, 2011

GroupMe, a First Round portfolio company, just announced its acquisition by Skype. Through Skype, they’ll have a huge distribution channel, so this will be only the beginning for the company. Through Skype, they’ll have a huge distribution channel, so this will be only the beginning for the company.

Venture Capital 102

Venture Capital Acquisition Portfolio Distribution 102

www.readwriteweb.com

MARCH 7, 2011

Bryce Roberts , a partner at O?Reilly Instead of investors holding onto proprietary connections and introductions for their portfolio companies, these relationships are being displaced by the dominate social networks ( Facebook , Linkedin , Quora ). Most indices are cap-weighted - more in line with a concentrated portfolio (i.e.

Technical Review 50

Technical Review Due Diligence Startup Angel Investor 50

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2021

These are all potential customers and strategic partners for startups. In short, the first wave of internet companies were widely distributed and brought people online (AOL in Virginia, Microsoft in Albuquerque and Seattle, Dell in Austin, etc.) More than 50 Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Texas and six of the Fortune 50.

Texas 90

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 90

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The product development model is so focused on building and shipping the product that it ignores the entire process of testing your basic hypothesis about your business model (customers, channel, pricing, etc.) customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) before you ship.

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

1) Write a blog and optimize distribution channels. So, distribution channels are also important to build from day 1. It’s just as important to work on growing your distribution channels so that you can build your blog reach. 2) Guest post on other major blogs who already have distribution.

Audience 48

Audience Entrepreneur Distribution Widget 48

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 25, 2018

It’s hard to do, which is why most demand generation advice merely advocates adding another channel or tool to the heap. At a bare minimum, correct goal tracking in Google Analytics identifies the most valuable on-site user behaviors and attributes them to a marketing channel. Create and distribute content to those segments.

Demand 132

Demand Vertical Campaign Channel 132

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

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 8, 2011

And to engage effectively with them, we need to reach them through all those various channels. I can say this with confidence based on my first hand experience mentoring a number of serious and promising Indian product entrepreneurs in the 1M/1M program, one of which, Freshdesk, has just raised financing from Accel Partners.

Greece 116

Greece Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley 116

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Active angels invest in a diversified portfolio of 10 or more companies, usually spreading their investments over a few years. In the end, such a portfolio might yield the angel investor a total return on investment of 25% per year or more. A local network of angels is critical to achieving a diversified portfolio.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

K9 Ventures

JULY 21, 2016

That’s 7 out of about 29 investments that K9 has made to date and so that’s almost 1/4 of the K9 portfolio. In at least one case, one of my portfolio companies wasn’t able to source the parts they would have really wanted because Apple had locked up the entire supply chain for that part!

Software Review 48

Software Review Forecast Portfolio Distribution 48

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 222

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Besides being “busy doing great deals and distributing cash to your LPs”, what are they’re actually doing to make that happen? Since I started coaching investors , especially non-partners and partners at emerging funds, I’ve been asked the same questions in all sorts of ways: “What things should I be doing to be great?”

Non-Compete 97

Non-Compete Cofounder Cap Table Reputation 97

BeyondVC

JULY 19, 2004

If you ever wondered what it takes for a startup to succeed, please read the email below sent from the CEO of one of our portfolio companies to his whole staff. Without your sincerity, commitment and hard work, we would not have become the #1 partner for Company X. Regards, CEO of portfolio company.

Memphis 60

Memphis Atlanta Startup Dallas 60

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia. We understood none of this. More detail in future posts.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

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? For example, Google’s acquisition of Nest (which had customers, revenue and a distribution channel) allowed it to enter the connected home market immediately.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120

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. Screenz - Company Website.

Securities and Exchange Commission 133

Securities and Exchange Commission Technical Review Software Review 133

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 23, 2012

” If you look at the Foundry Group portfolio , you’ll notice a lot of market leaders. Change the customer, change a product focus, change the distribution channel, or change the partner dynamic. I’m back today with the second topic, “Resegment If You Aren’t In The Top Three.”

Venture Capital 138

Venture Capital Portfolio Distribution Channel 138

Occam's Razor

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

What you deem as success creates an incentive for an individual employee, the group/division, your company’s partners, to behave in a certain way. Too much emphasis was on Averages (remember averages suck, distributions are better ). When you choose unwisely, the long-term consequences can be dramatic. ACT goals were set imprecisely.

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Acquisition Naming 60

VC Cafe

APRIL 8, 2010

Brazil is Israel’s largest trade partner in Latin America. Gordonsville, Virginia-based PBM manufactures and distributes over-the-counter store-brand infant formula and baby foods sold by retailers in the mass, club, grocery and drug channels in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China. Net-Aye is a subsidiary of Bar-Tec Ltd.

OTC 68

OTC Brazil Paraguay 68