Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

The new paradigm, driven by disruptive technologies, cloud-served supercomputing, and the new generation of young adults with global empathy, is partnering and giving something now for a competitive advantage in the future. Find partners who can do what you cannot do alone. This is the new world of do-it-yourself (DIY) prototyping.

Partner 328

Partner Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Cloud 328

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

The market was down considerably with public valuations down 53–79% across the four sectors we were reviewing (it is since down even further). ==> Aside, we also have a NEW LA-based partner I’m thrilled to announce: Nick Kim. To that end I’m really excited to share that Nick Kim has joined Upfront as a Partner based out of our LA offices.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

Hauser Private Equity partnered with the Denver-based private equity firm Revelstoke Capital Partners to make a growth investment in DataLink Fund Solutions, a leading provider of integrated population health management applications. Organic and Inorganic Growth.

Private Equity 130

Private Equity Equity Technical Review Software Review 130

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

As I’ve worked to build out HOF Capital ’s portfolio acceleration platform , the #1 question I think about is: how do we scalably support our companies? Many VCs offer (or strive to offer) a bundle of levers and support structures to help their portfolio companies. We have lower AUM, therefore lower management fees.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

VC Cafe

AUGUST 11, 2022

A couple of weeks ago I was did a fireside chat with Alon Grinshpoon, founder and CEO of Echo3D , a CDN and CMS for 3D content in the cloud and a Remagine Ventures portfolio company, as part of an entrepreneurial finance MBA class in Tel Aviv University. Choose a partner, not just a fund. So choose your partner wisely.

Founder 187

Founder Term Sheet Cofounder Venture Capital 187

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

Best Practices in Venture Capital Portfolio Company Value Creation. In addition, in light of increasing competition in the startup funding space, a methodology for helping portfolio companies consistently is a strong competitive advantage. I’ve also posted this at Betabeat.). View more presentations from David Teten.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

Austin Startup

JUNE 2, 2018

Using HelloFund, organizations can swiftly and effectively create custom pages for crowdfunding, event tickets, recurring payments, membership dues, etc., We partner with you to fund an array of causes and events with the latest in landing page design and effective tools to convert your audience. Our platform is 100% responsive?—?mobile

Portfolio 48

Portfolio Austin Software Review Cofounder 48

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

The new paradigm, driven by disruptive technologies, cloud-served supercomputing, and the new generation of young adults with global empathy, is partnering and giving something now for a competitive advantage in the future. Find partners who can do what you cannot do alone. This is the new world of do-it-yourself (DIY) prototyping.

Partner 310

Partner Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 310

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Will and his co-founders Paul Joo and Vincent Tran honed in on a segment of the student loan market that has a huge, unaddressed need – providing customized recommendations for loan forgiveness opportunities. The post Meet Summer: Our Portfolio Company Changing The Student Loan Landscape appeared first on NextView Ventures.

Portfolio 295

Portfolio Cofounder Government Finance 295

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 5, 2022

You will have access to significantly more talent with a wider variety of abilities and more outstanding portfolio cases if you outsource software design to offshore suppliers since the talent pool is greater. The skill set is theoretically considerably broader because the world is much broader than the nation in which your business is based.

Offshore 141

Offshore Software Developers Software Development Software 141

Version One Ventures

JUNE 30, 2022

Shellworks , one of our newest portfolio companies, raised $6.2 Firstparty , a customer analytics and attribution company, raised $5.75M in seed funding. . Jobber and Thumbtack are now partners to help home service businesses. Lolli continues to partner with big brands like CVS and Safeway, etc. million in seed funding.

Portfolio 82

Portfolio B2B Canada Incubator 82

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

VC Partnerships Start by understanding how many partners are at the firm you are approaching. It’s pretty easy since nearly every VC lists its partners on the website. Some firms are trickier since they artificially call everybody “partner” but they’re not all “investment partners.” How many partners are there?

Technical Review 314

Technical Review Due Diligence Partner Term Sheet 314

YoungUpstarts

JULY 26, 2018

Stojanovic had an important observation on the successful implementation of innovative technologies in the EV marketplace: “you need three things: policy, innovation and customer demand” in order to be successful, he said. Extend your Customer Reach with Partnerships. Extend your Customer Reach with Partnerships.

Marketing 147

Marketing North America Green Software Review 147

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

The Innovation Portfolio. Companies manage these three types of innovation with an innovation portfolio – they build innovation internally, they buy it or they partner with resources outside their company. A business model is all the parts of a strategy necessary to deliver a product to a customer and make money from it.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

The Equity Kicker

DECEMBER 5, 2013

As I’ve written before here at Forward Partners we work with entrepreneurs to help them launch and scale their companies in two different ways. Good examples of things we like from our portfolio include: Hailo - a new way of booking taxis that people love because the product is a joy to use. Both sides are free to walk away.

Partner 117

Partner Software Review eCommerce Due Diligence 117

View from Seed

JULY 31, 2014

Two weeks ago, my partners and I here at NextView Ventures announced our second fund. As my partner Rob Go has written , our goal is to invest half in consumer web and mobile and half in business-focused ventures. More interesting, however, is reflecting on what “rhymes” across multiple investments within our portfolio.

Seed Stage 272

Seed Stage B2C Technical Review Disintermediation 272

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. Patience is a virtue.

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

My other partner, Steven Dietz, was on the board of my second company. Neither is very strategic nor in the best interest of either set of customers that VCs have (portfolio companies & LPs). But he has the added benefit of living in the UK – making him the perfect partner for Nick. Writing a book will be fun.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers?

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

You want to think about “what your customers want to buy” and then adjust your pitch accordingly. These groups are investing in funds to get a good return, but perhaps more importantly, to be able to track their portfolios and be able to deploy more dollars in later rounds directly and with lower fees.

LP 309

LP Customer Early Stage Portfolio 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce that we have added Greg Bettinelli as a partner at GRP Partners. He shared tons of information about how how they were using marketing to quantitatively make marketing decisions at HauteLook and acquire customers for prices that were far cheaper than similar companies.

Partner 360

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles San Francisco 360

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

You’re in discussions with strategic partners and potential beta customers. It’s the first place a potential customer will go to check you out. What value will customers receive from doing business with your company? If you have a white paper or customer testimonial, feature it. Plan to iterate. Just be clear.

Elevator Pitch 100

Elevator Pitch Web Portfolio B2B 100

Version One Ventures

JUNE 30, 2021

Here are just some of many activities and accomplishments in the V1 portfolio during the past quarter…. Shippo raised a $50M round led by Bessemer Venture Partners at a $1B valuation. . We have been active investors in DeFi for almost three years now and you can read about why we’re thrilled to add Defined to our portfolio. .

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Valuation Canada IPO 60

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

How to Scale Unicorns With Partner David Zhang, TVC. Joining us for this episode is our partner David Zhang, Partner at TCV (( Technology Crossover Ventures ). I’m a partner at TCV, which we founded in 1996. What guidance for your portfolio companies? You’re going out to acquire customers.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. Patience is a virtue.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 7, 2020

Outreach was named to this prestigious list thanks in part to triple-digit year-over-year revenue growth and the largest customer base in the sales engagement category. Lolli continued to add new partners from Expedia to Nike. Mapping Quality Indicator, Localization Thumbnail, Custom Point Clouds, New Sample Apps, New Docs and more!

North America 78

North America Technical Review Seattle Software Review 78

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

The most poignant of these challenges was the quest for capital partners, which was not just about securing capital but about finding collaborators who were willing to believe in the vision and commit to the long-term journey. Beyond providing capital, private credit firms often engage in strategic partnerships with their portfolio companies.

Technical Review 135

Technical Review Due Diligence Bankruptcy Intellectual Property 135

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

None of that can compare with being the CEO of a startup facing a rapidly diminishing bank account, your best engineer quitting, working until 10pm and rushing to the airport and catching a redeye for a “ Hail Mary ” close of a customer, with your board demanding you do it faster. venture/operating partners to get them into new industries.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Where Are the Customers? Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

Start diagraming out the relationships of all the customer segments. How do you get your early customers to advocate on your behalf? Have them tell you how they helped other companies in their portfolio succeed, pitfalls to avoid, and the lobbying resources they can bring to bear. Who influences who? How do they interconnect?

Washington 280

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 280

View from Seed

MARCH 11, 2020

Due diligence may seem like a drag, but partnering with an investor is a serious commitment, and you want to make sure that whoever you work with has built real conviction about you and your company. This includes things like: Making intros to portfolio companies that are potential customers. Talking to your customers.

Technical Review 279

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Seed Stage 279

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. Patience is a virtue.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

Before we head into the last quarter of the year, let’s take a few minutes to highlight some notable announcements made over the summer in the V1 portfolio. Ada is partnering with FINCANEX to deliver AI-Powered customer service to financial institutions across Canada. Launches and product updates. Fundraises and accolades.

Portfolio 87

Portfolio Canada Equity Security 87

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 13, 2020

You’re spending much of your time selling: the vision to employees, the opportunity to investors, the story to the press, the offering to the customers, the relationship to partners. Of course you’ll have lots of functional partners who basically sell as a job responsibility. Highlighted Homebrew Portfolio Jobs.

Technical Cofounder 145

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Startup Matching 145

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2014

The new paradigm, driven by disruptive technologies, cloud-served supercomputing, and the new generation of young adults with global empathy, is partnering and giving something now for a competitive advantage in the future. Find partners who can do what you cannot do alone. This is the new world of prototyping.

Partner 251

Partner Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Cloud 251

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 21, 2020

And if the financial professional does not already have all of the information needed to correct the application, it has to go back to the client, which not only slows the process down but also creates a poor customer experience. Applications can be submitted and processed faster, which lets customers get their policies issued faster.

Technical Review 244

Technical Review SEC Affiliate Technology 244