Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 16, 2014

So, Jason and I started talking more about things we could do to positively impact the Detroit startup community and looped the Techstars gang into the conversation. Many other venture firms have also contacted Techstars communicating their interest in bringing capital to Detroit.

Detroit 145

Detroit Mobile Programming San Francisco 145

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 10, 2013

Much of the conversation was personal, as in addition to being one of our largest investors, Jamey has become an incredibly close friend. I was struggling with my depression so we talked some about that, but that merely served as a launch point for a deeper conversation. I remembered my conversation with Jamey.

LP 152

LP Venture Capital Conversion Restful 152

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 17, 2015

I just let them take the conversation where they wanted. The questions were great, but some of what they were hearing about venture capital was scary as s**t. A handful of them had jobs in venture capital firms and we talked about how to be effective as a freshly minted associated. ” Um.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Silicon Valley New York IPO 70

Feld Thoughts

JULY 12, 2014

Venture Capital actions behavior life startup life VC words' My biggest behavior change 14 years ago was to focus hard on having my words match my actions, and my actions match my words. If you don’t know, ask yourself at the end of each day “did my words today match my actions.”

Matching 177

Matching Venture Capital Reputation PR 177

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 5, 2016

I was around at the beginning, spending a day a month in Kansas City with the Kauffman Foundation as an entrepreneur-in-residence when the program was originally created by a team at the Kauffman Foundation to identify, develop, and network the next generation of global leaders in the venture capital industry using a two-year apprenticeship program.

Kansas City 70

Kansas City Kansas Venture Capital Programming 70

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 8, 2018

At a minimum, IWD and the organizations and individuals celebrating it will spark action, continue existing conversations, and force new ones. At Foundry Group, as part of our efforts to help build a more inclusive tech industry, we’ve joined two initiatives as part of IWD 2018: #StartWithEight and Project #MovingForward.

Deal Flow 70

Deal Flow Venture Capital Open Source Networking 70

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 19, 2017

When we started Foundry Group in 2006, we were very clear that we were not going to build a legacy venture capital firm; one meant to outlive its founders. In 2014, Seth, Jason, Ryan, and I had the first of many conversations about our long-term plans for Foundry Group.

Partner 91

Partner Venture Capital Conversion Portfolio 91

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 2, 2016

” When I go back a decade, we were just making the decision not to raise another Mobius Venture Capital fund. Venture Capital and entrepreneurship was dramatically out of favor. Early stage and seed capital was extremely difficult to find. My partners and I hadn’t yet created Foundry Group.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Seed Capital Early Stage Partner 70

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 6, 2014

I was thinking about the ‘what’s next’ conversation. I’m sure you’ve seen everything and are all over it, but in my more limited experience, for some people it’s harder than the what’s first conversation (i.e. should I start a company or not?).

Alaska 166

Alaska Widget Colorado Angel Investor 166

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 10, 2022

I like the quote she pulled out of me in our conversation. I don’t respond to many interview requests these days, but I’ll always talk to her. She has a good article today in TechCrunch titled Embrace the down round (it’s going to be okay, maybe).

Down Round 162

Down Round Ratchet Liquidation Preference Participating Preferred 162

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 6, 2010

In this middle of what was a rambling conversation, Rich said “think of us as produce suppliers.” Tags: Venture Capital Entrepreneurship VC. This was made even hard with the handful of angels involved – where did they fit in? And, it was clear that the kitchen was getting crowded. He said something like: “We bring you produce.

Venture Capital 132

Venture Capital Conversion Employee Entrepreneur 132

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Jason, BradB, and Mike’s class is a subset of the class that Jason and BradB teach at the CU Boulder Law School which has consistently been one of the most popular law and business school classes around startups, raising money, and venture capital. Join us in class - and give us feedback on what you think about it.

Colorado 139

Colorado Venture Capital Portfolio Partner 139

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Last week, at the Startup America Regional meeting, I got into a conversation about the role of state and local government in the development of startup communities. I’m at Venture Capital in the Rockies today. Somehow these two thoughts merged together in my head and continue to circle around.

Government 137

Government Colorado Community Venture Capital 137

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

It was a full room of entrepreneurs and what I hope was a stimulating and useful conversation for them. Matt’s part of Pritzker Group Venture Capital which has offices in Chicago and LA as a result of where JB Pritzker and Tony Pritzker call home (Chicago and LA respectively).

Chicago 150

Chicago Community Startup Venture Capital 150

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 2, 2012

” Over and over again I hear questions like “how do I raise venture capital” or “how do I approach a VC”, or “what does a VC want to see in the first meeting”, or “now that I’m going to pitch a VC, what should I show them?

Venture Capital 140

Venture Capital Programming Finance Web 140

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 19, 2017

Over the past few days, I’ve had a similar conversation about reporting tempo with three different people (2 CFOs and 1 CEO). This was an artifact of the last 30 years of venture capital, where VCs often would use the board meeting as the way to primarily engage with the company.

Balance Sheet 70

Balance Sheet Metrics SEC Distribution 70

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 19, 2015

Since then I ended up at a venture capital firm in Dubai called BECO Capital. My philosophy of inclusiveness and #GiveFirst was front and center in this conversation, and Dany, Amir, and Sorusch felt deeply aligned with my approach to investing and company creation. At the end of lunch, Dany gave me three books.

Saudi Arabia 70

Saudi Arabia Kuwait UAE Iran 70

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 28, 2011

The venture capital community has finally realized this (again) and much of the physical location of the VCs is shifting to the Cambridge / Kendall Square area with a little in Harvard Square (a 10 minute cab or train ride from Kendall Square.).

Boston 138

Boston Entrepreneur Community Venture Capital 138

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

I’m good friends with Brad and his partner Fred Wilson and we’ve had a number of conversations about this over the past six months, including the creation of an ad-hoc group we are calling “Abolish Software Patents” (which is similar in structure to the group behind the Startup Visa Movement.

Software 116

Software New York Venture Capital Partner 116

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 18, 2012

I don’t remember the ACI folks being very helpful and I remember a number of conversations with Dave about “the f **g Macintosh.” Over the preceding months, we had tried extremely hard and worked many unbillable hours trying to get things working, but just couldn’t. ” We were deep in The Struggle.

Software 167

Software Boston Venture Capital Networking 167

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 16, 2019

I recall a personal low point when a founder/CEO who is a close friend asked to go for a walk and started the conversation with “You could have told me that you were leaving my board in a more graceful way than a one paragraph email.” ” Very true.

Cap Table 82

Cap Table Founder Conversion Email 82

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

Conversion right: In Germany, there is generally no conversion right entitling the holder of preferred shares to convert them into common shares at any time. However, the lack of a conversion right also has implications for anti-dilution protection: in the U.S., this is usually done by adjusting the conversion price.

Germany 165

Germany Liquidation Preference Option Pool Advisory Board 165

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 26, 2017

My partners and I had an extensive conversation over the weekend. But mostly just ashamed of myself for not doing more about the issue of sexual harassment in our industry. I read Reid Hoffman’s The Human Rights of Women Entrepreneurs and Joanne Wilson’s The Gig Is Up. Amy and I talked about it over dinner Friday and Saturday night.

PR 133

PR Partner Conversion Management 133

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

I sat across from Joanne and since the restaurant was noisy our table ended up having two separate conversations going. We talked a lot about seed stage investing during our part of the conversation. During the conversation we had a moment where we were talking about feedback.

Seed Stage 133

Seed Stage Angel Investor Conversion Entrepreneur 133

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 7, 2018

It also reinforces the value of being vulnerable to your partners – it’s often really hard to sit quietly and listen to the details without jumping in and trying to steer the conversation or inject your point of view into the mix. While “How Are You Doing?” Obvious but important meeting rules : No phone.

Portfolio 87

Portfolio Denver Colorado Chicago 87

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 14, 2017

We then had a healthy conversation that extended the strategy into ways they worked with CEOs and founders, how they wanted these founders to talk about them to other founders and VCs, and how they thought of themselves in the context of the other 500 seed funds floating around. I paused to eat another piece of sushi.

Differentiation 147

Differentiation Later Stage Equity Founder 147

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 1, 2015

We’ve had a number of great conversations over the years. At Foundry Group, we’ve done a number of investments with Bijan’s firm Spark Capital , including AdMeld (sold – very successful investment), Trigget (sold, but not a successful investment), and most recently Sourcepoint. .” It’s worth it.

Conversion 70

Conversion Founder Venture Capital 70

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 10, 2015

I was in a conversation last week with a friend who asked “do you think this is the beginning of the end?” Somewhere in between these two conversations I told someone that I thought this was actually the “end of the beginning.”

Conversion 70

Conversion Hiring Technology Venture Capital 70

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 21, 2015

” I didn’t care, as I was doing it – like Fred often said – to help me think out loud in public, learn about different things, and get a conversation going around topics I was interested in.

Web 70

Web Naming Conversion Entrepreneur 70

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 2, 2015

Or, if you just want the paragraph, it’s: “If this note converts at a price higher than the cap that you have been given you agree that in the conversion of the note into equity you agree to allow your stock to be converted such that you will receive no more than a 1x non-participating liquidation preference plus any agreed interest.”.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Cap Table Angel Investor Post-Money Valuation 70

Feld Thoughts

JULY 9, 2011

When I reflect on the interactions I’ve had with my investors over the last 25 years, I always tried hard to be responsive, even if we had a disagreement, difficult conversation, or difference of opinion. I tried to come up with a rationale for blowing off an LP.

LP 120

LP Email Conversion Entrepreneur 120

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Much of it is very short term focused and, like a giant tractor beam, draws the conversation into a very short time horizon (as in days or weeks). And, rather than rational and helpful thoughts for entrepreneurs, it often brings out the schadenfreude in even the most talented people.

Cap Table 70

Cap Table Down Round Liquidation Preference Founder 70

Feld Thoughts

MAY 20, 2015

The conversations devolve quickly into “yes we are” and “no we aren’t.” Given that, there is a regularly occurring discussion about whether or not we are in a bubble, or this is a bubble, or is a bubble forming, or some other bubble thing. ” I have no idea if we are in a bubble or not.

Early Stage 70

Early Stage Leadership Global Internet 70

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 9, 2015

The conversation around AvidXchange brought to light the magnitude of the opportunity we have to invest in interesting companies outside of our early stage portfolio. We also had a long conversation about our GP fund investing strategy. It is clear to us that we enjoy investing in other VC funds and working to support the GPs.

Later Stage 70

Later Stage Early Stage Advisory Board Deal Flow 70

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

“I’ve had a few conversations recently about how individual seed investors are getting kind of tapped out – for a variety of reasons, but in general it’s not that easy to find people who are still actively investing. I got the following question from a friend yesterday.

Angel Investor 70

Angel Investor Seed Capital Valuation Demand 70

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 6, 2012

For me, the essence of the conversation comes back to making your own decision as an investor. Both are worth reading along with the comments. Naval Ravikant, the co-founder of AngelList, also has a thoughtful comment on Hunter’s post , although I disagree with some of it.

Syndicate 136

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Angel Investor 136