Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

It was only a year ago that many in the Venture Capital industry were predicting that “winter was coming” and to be fair the author of this post was chief amongst them. While this it total FDI as opposed to just venture, it should give you an indication of the international trend. Baidu alone raised $3.2

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story. And we’re patient.

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Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2016

And if you do happen to be lucky and find the right mountain to climb, if you find that you’ve started ascending the peak before others have found the right trail — then venture capital is for you. But you need to understand venture economics. And if you want more daily startup advice follow me on Snapchat (msuster).

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened?

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The overall trends in our industry have breathed a new life into the venture capital industry. The iPhone was released.

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Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners. Ditto for enterprise software companies.

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Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Others may not have the experience you want and they fill up a seat that makes retaining founder control more difficult if you ultimately raise large rounds of venture capital in the future. What happens at the A-round of venture capital? With that said, no venture capital firm really wants to replace a CEO.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

There’s a quick litmus-test conversation any early-stage VC will have with the founder and it’s one that you should be as prepared for as your elevator pitch. Conversely many VCs believe that constraining cash can often lead to increases in creative solutions at a startup. This part of a series to help you raise venture capital ?—?the

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” That company was Invoca, which just announced a $20 million fund raise led by Accel. 5 years ago. ” Yup.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2016

Today is amongst the proudest days I’ve had at Upfront Ventures — getting the chance to announce that Kevin Zhang has been promoted to Partner. years at Upfront has been both a pleasure and also has taught me a lot about venture capital. I mentioned at the start that Kevin has taught me something about Venture Capital.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

This is critical to build a cohesive venture capital firm. understanding how to talk about how much capital you’re raising, why this number is right, how long the cash will last and what you’ll have to show for yourself once your money is spent. We operate a policy of “no retribution” and “no reciprocity.”

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Technical Review Due Diligence Partner Term Sheet 314

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. Existing investors won’t want to have these conversations. It is 2010.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? What Does this Mean for a Venture Capital Firm?

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Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

Contrast that with a VC conversation I had. But if you want to build a fast-growing, tech-enabled startup it’s hard to imagine doing so without venture capital and lambasting VCs publicly probably isn’t the most thoughtful strategy. We were talking about raising money from LPs.

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Software Review Customer Technical Review LP 341

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

If you believe that more great firms will be created out of the successes of Riot Games, Maker Studios, Snapchat, Tinder, Dollar Shave Club and all the other wealth creation activities over the past 5 years — then you have to believe that LA Tech is on the rise and LA Venture Capital is well positioned to be a part of that future success story.

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IPO Los Angeles Technical Review Silicon Valley 214

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. There’s an old saying that if I’m talking with you and I start the conversation by saying, “whatever you do, DO NOT think about Elephants &# then you can’t help but thinking about elephants while we’re speaking.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series. It felt like Groundhog Day because I have this conversation again and again – literally dozens of times each year. But the venture guys don’t make the calls on what the product / business guys do. The topic of &# strategic&# investors came up.

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Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. So usually the first money comes locally. Maker Studios. Savings.com. TextPlus.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

LPs Haven’t Yet Grokked the Long Game While the VC community realized 5ish years ago that short-termism in venture capital didn’t make sense and has capitalized on the scale advantages of letting companies go long, the LP community by and large hasn’t totally grokked this.

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Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. If they’re likely to raise a new fund then you might be OK but at least have the conversation with them. Tags: Pitching VCs Raising Venture Capital VC Industry. And know that raising new VC funds right now is incredibly hard.

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Venture Capital Balance Sheet Early Stage Software Review 269

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

So it might actually be more productive for you to improve your conversion than to improve your ad buying, for example. PR and non programmatic marketing often have a lagging affect so if you ran a big out-of-home marketing campaign that created brand awareness you may find that conversion actually takes place 60–90 days later.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Union Square Ventures (USV) has been one of the most successful venture capital firms of the past 10–15 years and continues to be a leader in our industry. Lindel is no stranger to thorny venture capital issues — he was arguably amongst the most successful LPs of his generation.

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Leadership LP Venture Capital Silicon Valley 161

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Conversely if you’re burning $600,000 per month (yes, some companies do) then you only have 5 months of cash left. If you have raised venture capital and you feel your runway (number of months cash left) is looking low have a conversation with your VC. Would they be willing to put a bridge loan in place if need be?

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Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

This is Venture Capital. The Denominator Effect was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story. In our funds we do about 12 deals / year and see several thousand so the funding rate is somewhere between 0.2–0.5%

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Angel Investor Deal Flow Portfolio Forecast 301

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

We then captured this conversation again on camera. And I hope the output is that you get a glimpse into the people shaping our tech present and a sense of the kinds of conversations we have when the cameras aren’t around. It’s a valuable use of time because those are candid one-on-one conversations.

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Connecticut Cofounder Silicon Valley Web 286

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2019

Venture Capital “Plus 1's” ?—?Many every voice has the ability to sway a conversation and the tenor of the meeting. was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story. The full lists of posts is on the link.

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Strategic Investors Startup Stock Options Venture Capital 255

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2019

A Short Presentation was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story. I discussed a range of other topics that I didn’t address in this post. link] Managing Your Startup Board?—?A

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Management Startup Dividend Early Stage 234

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2016

GOAT just announced it raised $5 million in venture capital led by our friends at Matrix Partners. It’s a Chanukkah story where 18 months of venture capital funding ends up lasting more than 4 years and where against all odds the underdog succeeds. On the surface that sounds unremarkable — fundings happen daily.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

He’s one of those rare people that after every meeting you have with him you feel like you have much more insight into the future of the technology industry than before your conversation began. We kept meeting at conferences over the next 18 months and he kept showing me what he was working on.

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Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

One is the “denominator problem&# which says that if an LP invests X% (the denominator) into “alternative investments&# such as venture capital and if their total amount available to invest (the numerator) goes down by 30% then the amount they allocate to VC will by definition need to go down by 30% to stay the same percentage.

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LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

I had an enjoyable conversation this morning with a young team straight out of college this morning and they were calling to ask advice on how to approach fund raising (angels vs. VCs, how to select a VC, etc.) And so is venture capital. You don’t really have much to go on to decide who would make a good fit. Of partner?

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

Early-stage venture capital is about extreme winners. Shots on Goal was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story. Since our funds are around $300 million each this returns 2–4x the fund if we do it right.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

Sometimes that’s venture capital generally (like last year’s conversation with Reid Hoffman ) and sometimes it’s in a space where I’ve invested (like mobility and city innovation with Bird’s Travis VanderZanden , one of our portfolio founders.) I hope you’ll enjoy the interview as much as I did.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.”

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Once you’ve been around for a few years, attracted some great people, landed real, paying customers and raised venture capital you’ve likely got a talented team around you. I opened up with a very blunt conversation about self confidence, self doubt, family pressure, peer pressure and the demands on a CEO.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

I’m excited to share a short conversation with Andrew about today’s news and where the company is going, which you can see here : [link] We cover: Density’s growth and transition through the past two years of a pandemic where? data that hasn’t been available until now?—?is

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Just as I was getting the swing of things the world shifted beneath my feet and the stock market went into a free fall and venture capital all but shut down for nearly a year. was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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