Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Marketing with long payback is precisely what requires venture capital. They literally can’t respond to our core differentiator. Know your planned sources of differentiation and adjust as you learn. But assuming they were able to copy us. Conclusion. Validate data. Validate firmly held positions.

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Smart is simply not a differentiator. And so is venture capital. It’s insanely competitive to get into our industry so most have degrees from institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and University of Chicago (blatant plug ;-). In fact, book smart can be a negative. I’ll let you decide which you’d want.

Portfolio 364

Portfolio Chicago Sales Incubator 364

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. I admit that I haven’t yet read it but I’ve had numerous discussions with Brad over the years about board structure & conduct and consider him a mentor on the topic. In the Early Days.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I guess if you’re in high-volume, low-differentiation mode perhaps this is efficient for you. Inbound is seldom differentiated dealflow. Don’t even get me started on Demo Days.

Cofounder 374

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 374

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). The strategy of GigaOm and where they differentiate in the market.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. You have to be selected to present and it is typically reserved for companies that have already raised early-stage capital and are well into revenue growth. Should you use investment banks to raise venture capital?

IPO 242

IPO Venture Capital Private Placement Cofounder 242

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Differentiate. Most Venture Capital “A&# rounds (as of 2009) seem to start around $3 million pre-money and may go as high as $5-6 million pre-money if you’ve made a lot more progress or for some other reason the deal is “hot&#. Stand out from the crowd. Do more than you are asked to do.

Silicon Valley 291

Silicon Valley Ireland Technical Review Valuation 291

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

If you choose your name well and it represents what your customers value in you then it will be memorable, differentiated and meaningful. Over the next few weeks I’m going to release a few posts on what we believe platform services are and why we believe they’re an important part of the future of venture capital. *.

Ireland 324

Ireland Jordan Portfolio Flash 324

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2015

announced they raised $9 million from Sequoia , arguably the best venture capital firm that exists. I still believe in knowing how your product differentiates to things others in the market can buy in stead of your products. This morning Clutter.io Congratulations. Quickly get back to your day job. Don’t get me wrong.

Cofounder 150

Cofounder Venture Capital Differentiation Holding Company 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

This thinking is largely driven by the venture capital industry (and subsequently Wall Street) who are in search of high margin, highly scalable businesses. I gave them advice I don’t think they were expecting from a VC, “Don’t raise venture capital for this business. This team is talented.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley IP Dividend Finance 332

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

He was introduced through mutual friends to Highland Capital. At the time consumer internet venture capital was still suffering from the collapse of the Tech Bubble. But it was an attractive time to enter because the successful internet companies were scaling and in need of capital. 49:35-51:30).

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

I think I’m at the expert stage of venture capital and I mean in the Wardley sense. Money when you find product / market fit is an extreme differentiator. I know in my bones that there is a magic moment where capital plays a hugely differentiating role. the more money you give a startup the faster they grow.

Churn Rate 150

Churn Rate Silicon Valley Brazil Valuation 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

We’re a national venture capital investment firm but with our roots firmly in Los Angeles. You may have a strong sense of purpose, a great and differentiated product or service and a great team surrounding you but if you don’t learn to empower your team you’ll never be as effective of a leader as you should be.

Leadership 150

Leadership Southern California San Diego Hiring 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

Upfront Ventures has a deep-seated commitment to equality in funding & building diverse teams across all ethnicities, nationalities and genders. We do this not just because it’s the right thing to do but also we believe it will help drive large and differentiated returns.

Term Sheet 284

Term Sheet Los Angeles Open Source Portfolio 284

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

The framework of his book has profoundly altered how I think about the technology market and affects how I thought about building my businesses and how I think about investing in venture capital. In fact, the incumbent is usually very dismissive of this new competition as our the large buyers of the incumbent’s products.

Vesting 376

Vesting Framework Revenue Technology 376

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. You can’t average your way into VC success – Dave McClure talks with such disdain about venture capitalists that I think he misses the broader point. Answer: Not much. It’s a shame.

Liquidity Event 308

Liquidity Event Silicon Valley Seed Stage Finance 308

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Of course we have to believe that there is a viable market, a differentiated product offering and a chance to build something defensible but if you do those basics right you still get crushed without an amazingly talented founder. He was steadfast.

Security 247

Security Los Angeles Silicon Valley Video 247

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

It quickly became impossible to raise venture capital. It isn’t even a story about raising venture capital or M&A. Don’t over shop – If the deal you’re involved with involves raising venture capital or selling your company you naturally want some competition. Anybody who didn’t close was dead.

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

So why would raising venture capital be any different. Well if the “why buy anything” is testing whether you’re even compatible with a VC, the “why buy me” has got to be extreme differentiation. I call it “ marketing heroes” and I wrote about it here. why buy me? why buy now?

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2017

I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. A huge thank you to all of the Limited Partners who have entrusted us with your capital, time and reputations. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion.

Los Angeles 287

Los Angeles Las Vegas Venture Capital San Francisco 287

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

To differentiate themselves in the marketplace, Quigo made the pivotal move of going to publishers and saying explicitly “you’re working with Adsense. Google had built two ad systems at the time – AdWords and AdSense ( the latter of which was much more complex ). Quigo was competing heavily and heatedly with Google. We can do better.

Semantic 302

Semantic Acquisition Valuation Angel Investor 302

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

I was meeting regularly with entrepreneurs and offering (for better or for worse) advice on how to run a startup and how to raise venture capital from my experience in doing so at two companies. They achieved all of this before they raised even a penny of venture capital. I wanted to differentiate. Apparently not.

Startup 373

Startup eCommerce Audience Community 373

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

I first met the founder of Pose, Dustin Rosen , when he was a junior person with an LA-based venture capital firm called The Mail Room Fund. might have been a lot less differentiated. Pose is no different. The MRF was a committed fund of Accel, Venrock, AT&T and William Morris (one of LA’s largest talent agencies).

Term Sheet 303

Term Sheet Mobile Cofounder Early Stage 303

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 20, 2011

That’s OK if it’s your problem as long as your business really is differentiated and compelling. Obviously the diagnosis can have many route causes: Sometimes it’s a question of a market that is less sexy than the current VC fad. You’ll find the right investor eventually through persistence.

Dilution 284

Dilution Valuation Seed Money Differentiation 284

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 22, 2011

Often major customers defect en masse to the new entrant as they realize that the huge price premium is not justified by the product differentials. In stead they spend more money trying to innovate on product quality and call attention to the weaknesses of the new entrants product quality. is getting 3 million views.

Non-Compete 386

Non-Compete Startup Internet Cost 386

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2020

If you want to follow two great Black executives who work at the intersection of technology and venture capital make sure to click on those links and follow them on Twitter. Being diverse in the VC industry is a VERY LOW bar and a clear differentiator. So what exactly is Valence and why does it matter?

Founder 314

Founder Database United States Networking 314

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

The community they had developed was extremely valuable and is what differentiated StackOverflow from the free, open source alternatives that were created in response to StackExchange. With StackOverflow, Joel raised money through venture capital. Lesson: Joel had been building a community of readers since 2001.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software St. Louis API 285

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

So LPs are looking for a combination of “established top tier” and “new managers with differentiation.” Chang Xu for her tireless effort in helping me prepare and analyze the data) If you met with LPs to raise a fund in 2009–2012 the most common refrain was, “We have too many managers and too many dollars in venture.

LP 286

LP Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2016

He used the Central Park Five to differentiate himself from his political opponent. And for the occasional person who Tweets or comments, “Mark, I follow you to hear about tech or venture capital — not politics. This isn’t my work blog or my company blog or a venture capital blog. Keep your mouth shut.” (yes,

United States 267

United States America Venture Capital Government 267