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.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1. Morning in VC.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital! It’s ok to raise venture capital and try to build a monster business.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

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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.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

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.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago.

Los Angeles 387

Los Angeles Intellectual Property LP Venture Capital 387

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. That died with waterfall software development. 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.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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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. Watching him develop over the past 4.5 years at Upfront has been both a pleasure and also has taught me a lot about venture capital. Kevin joined Upfront in 2012 as an Associate.

Partner 150

Partner South Korea Venture Capital Europe 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 3rd Brad Feld wrote a one paragraph blog post titled “ Raising Venture Capital &# in which he linked to my blog. The Original Post (after the jump): Venture Capital, By Mark Suster (December 2nd, 2006). I don’t plan to write the authoritative venture capital blog, just some anecdotes.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

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?

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

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NOVEMBER 27, 2011

I interviewed Eric for an hour for - This Week in Venture Capital. 36:30 Eric: Social media is great for people with social capital. 42:20 Did agile development influence you? 1:05:35 Middle class job of the next generation: software development! ” This week was no exception. 38:00 Should you use avatars?

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Lean Social Media PR 301

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

Especially for their stage of development. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital VC Industry. They have done 3 startups in the customer support space and one that wasn’t. So these guys have both deep domain experience as well as tons of startup chops. I know the product intimately and it rocks. Want to debate them?

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Social Network Angel Investor Chad 265

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JUNE 27, 2013

And we chose to locate ourselves 3 blocks East of The Third Street Promenade where much new development is taking place. Perhaps the biggest piece of new news is that after 17 years of operations we’ve changed our name from GRP Partners to Upfront Ventures. What’s up with that? Upfront seemed to fit the bill.

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

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. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice Startup Advice.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Common Stock Dividend 289

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

Paige Craig , currently the most prolific, under-dressed, and most eligible angel in Los Angeles, sourced a hot, young startup called Gendai Games (makers of GameSalad - a platform for rapid development of mobile games). Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice Tech Market Analysis Term Sheets.

Finance 286

Finance Term Sheet Technical Review Warrant 286

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. Many businesses that pitch to me have White Elephant issues and I’d like to tell you how to deal with these when you’re raising venture capital. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice. I sometimes call these White Elephants.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Due Diligence Flash Strategic Investors 264

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DECEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series. When people refer to a strategic investor they are usually talking about an investor that comes from the industry you serve as opposed to an independent venture capital investor. The reality is that their core business is not venture capital.

Strategic Investors 279

Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2014

She created the company in New Zealand and without raising any institutional capital had grown a global business. The fact that Seedling had never raised venture capital made the deal 10x easier and the fact that they were going to be raising money on their own meant that the VCs had an important role to play.

Merger 296

Merger Southern California eCommerce New Zealand 296

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OCTOBER 21, 2009

On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). What are your predictions for the road ahead.

Technical Review 241

Technical Review IPO Southern California Venture Capital 241

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AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. Funding is about developing a relationship over time. Neither is the norm.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

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. But I would point out that these days there are really talented tech developers & teams everywhere. Here are mine: 1.

Community 378

Community San Diego Silicon Valley Los Angeles 378

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Venture Capital is a tricky industry. Many questioned whether it could survive under the fail whale, inevitable competition from Facebook, founder fighting, fights with 3rd-party developers let alone become a revolutionary business that could make money. Far from it. Lots of it.

Technical Review 362

Technical Review America Partner United States 362

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OCTOBER 29, 2010

He heads their business development practice and they have been very active in incubating, investing in and helping grow LA startups. Background: GRP Partners is a Los Angeles based Venture Capital firm with additional operations in London and Paris. Wait a second, what’s this CAA logo all about? Are you merging?

Los Angeles 290

Los Angeles Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 290

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JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

This is Venture Capital. You need to develop pattern recognition for what truly exceptional looks like. If you see every FinTech company you can possible meet (or even a sub-sector of FinTech like Insurance Tech company … you can truly develop both intuition and expertise over time). Don’t rush to do deals.

Angel Investor 301

Angel Investor Deal Flow Portfolio Forecast 301

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

Gross margins at 66% is fine (they’re selling through a reseller who takes a 33% margin) but their sales aren’t yet large enough to cover the costs of their IT development team + management + marketing + office costs, etc. They raised $5 million in venture capital to fund growth. So which company is better run?

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

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.

Leadership 161

Leadership LP Venture Capital Silicon Valley 161

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2009

But I would argue that you can develop relationships with many advisers, mentors and VCs that will help with introductions for no equity. Tags: Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital. So after realizing that you’re not getting the strategic insight you had hoped for you fall back to asking for introductions.

Advisory Board 306

Advisory Board Startup Equity Valuation 306

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2013

If you’re in your first year of developing your product chances are you haven’t yet found product / market fit and you don’t yet have enough value to sell your product for as much as you’d like. Control Size of PS Revenue Relative to Software Business. So how much PS is too much? There’s no right answer.

Software Review 321

Software Review Software IP Technical Review 321

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OCTOBER 22, 2010

There are many analogies here for software development. Tags: Startup Advice This Week in Venture Capital. Sometimes he didn’t even have the product when he announced it but the hype would get him focused on what he had to produce. The future of the world is in the palm of the tech community.&#.

Entrepreneur 356

Entrepreneur Los Angeles Norway Audience 356

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 had developers who thought that the chief architect was a bottleneck – having to be involved in every decision.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

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OCTOBER 15, 2014

I first met Nick Halstead in 2009 when he was running a company called Tweetmeme (the predecessor to DataSift) who had invented the Retweet button and actually helped Twitter develop its early API. He explained to me much of the Twitter infrastructure and why Twitter data would become super valuable.

Founder 309

Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Social Proof in Action … Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital. You need to give them advance notice of your product development or better yet let them help influence your direction. You need to give them “back stage&# passes to your company.

Customer 294

Customer Marketing Technical Review Iowa 294

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Of course it is super helpful if a VC can drop you in to important people for business development, recruiting, PR, sales and eventually M&A. And so is venture capital. Connections? I’ve seen other VCs who seem to never have time to get their hands dirty. I’ll let you decide which you’d want. Commitment.

Portfolio 364

Portfolio Chicago Sales Incubator 364

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Huge structural under-employment in much of the country and full employment in some niche tech markets where it’s impossible to hire developers, designers or sales professionals. It’s what I love about entrepreneurship and about venture capital. You know what I’m talking about. You feel it, too.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

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JANUARY 16, 2012

He’s focused on that sector (not exclusively but predominantly) and therefore has an amazing network at large financial services firms to help you with business development. Others that are experts in this field include Matt Harris at Village Ventures and Jim Robinson at RRE. Neither can any VC. Same with a new car.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

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MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Booyah – Develops a location based service platform that pairs the virtual world with mobile gaming. Read more: TechCrunch , Reg Form D , WSJ interview w/ Susan Lyne.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240