Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

When you’re company is growing >10x year over year, I suppose if management didn’t invest a lot in continued growth their board directors would line them up against the wall. Cumulative customers (unique buyers of Groupons): 15.8M (Q1 2011), 9.0M (2010), 0.4M (2009). in net revenue and passes $0.58 to the merchant.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Btw, here’s our startup [link] We are bringing yield management to the restaurant industry. Mostly smartphones + restaurateurs attitude towards viewing the internet as a customer acquisition tool. Still, the job of simultaneously raising money and managing a fast-growing company strains every sinew. A lot has changed.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Agile VC

JANUARY 18, 2012

It’s possible to disrupt industries or touch millions of customers even within a big company… just look at Apple, Amazon, and others. Nearly all founders though are seeking to fix a market or industry that’s broken, and occasionally create whole new industries in the process.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Cofounder Silicon Valley Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

AUGUST 9, 2012

Management Shake-ups – most notably the sudden departure of COO John Schappert and shuffling of Marc Pincus’s direct reports. But even if you back out customer acquisition spend in addition to COGS, Zynga’s profit margins are still over 50%.

Stock 160

Stock LBO .Net Valuation 160

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

Groupon didn’t manage to get out until November and Zynga in December. And finally margins matter… a $50-100M software company can go public given it’s 80-90% gross margins, an e-commerce company with 20-30% gross margins and high customer acquisition costs needs to be much bigger (probably 5-10x at least).

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

JUNE 12, 2012

In fact my first job as an early employee of PayPal was as Product Manager responsible for our mobile products (WAP-enabled cell phones and our legacy Palm Pilot IR port product) and the first international version of PayPal. Like anyone else, they are looking to own the customer data and offer smart loyalty programs. Is that it?

Mobile 250

Mobile Disintermediation SMS Government 250

Agile VC

JULY 24, 2013

Or to invest in mediocre startups at a low valuation but hope to “manage” this portfolio to better than expected outcomes. There are both specialty lenders and large banks that have built big, successful businesses in subprime lending. In theory this would work if the ok, not great startups had good, not great positive outcomes.

Valuation 200

Valuation Early Stage Distribution LP 200