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No One Wins In Business Plan Competitions

Steve Blank

But until now I haven’t been able to articulate a framework of why or had a concrete suggestion of what to replace them with. Venture Firms use the contests as another source of deal flow and talent. Filed under: Customer Development Manifesto , Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies , Teaching.

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Launching a Portfolio Acceleration Platform at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Fund

David Teten

I propose here a framework for prioritizing your platform buildout. Customer Development. A well-developed model is Andreessen Horowitz’s Executive Briefing Center. A true industry luminary will help in deal flow & differentiation . Disadvantages. In-house, brand-name guru.

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How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood

David Teten

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. Sebastian Soler recently launched Knowledge.vc , which uses software and machine learning to enhance deal sourcing and diligence for VC firms.

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Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions

Steve Blank

In exchange, these VCs/companies get early looks at new deal flow and offer aspiring entrepreneurs feedback and advice on their business plan. For those of you who don’t know, business plan competitions are held by universities who get their students to enter and compete to see who has the best business idea.