View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2021

But in the grand scheme of things, 10 years is a blip, and one that had a continuous bull market in tech. But what has also happened over the last 10 years is the massive expansion of the series A and lifecycle fund market. I’ll be writing a number of posts looking back over the first decade of the life of this firm. But guess what?

Dilution 399

Dilution Later Stage Portfolio Technical Review 399

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Use good judgment, talk to your co-founders/investors/lawyers, and partner with a bank that values transparency and relationships such as SVB.]. Especially in the early stages, so much about the company may change in how they think about product or go-to-market — and change multiple times — before raising an institutional round.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% return cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

We were trying to optimize around a few criteria: price, size of round, number of syndicate partners and, of course, terms. But we weren’t optimizing for dilution – we were building a $1 billion+ company and we wanted the runway to succeed. If you remember your history the market crashed the next week.

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

thebarefootvc

MAY 8, 2012

The best VCs are the ones that balance their optimism, vision and enthusiasm for startups with realism based on very real constraints (the primary one being his/her own time, but also includes market development and exit timing). Too many pivots, and you can lose the market opportunity, even with the greatest idea.

Venture Capital 78

Venture Capital Syndicate Syndication Bandwidth 78

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). You have to decide how hard to help with downstream marketing for your deals. I guess if you’re in high-volume, low-differentiation mode perhaps this is efficient for you.

Cofounder 374

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 374

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2021

Texas is the most promising technology market in the United States. If you want to launch a new business, this is a great market to launch from because you can easily reach all of the major Texas cities with one office. These are all potential customers and strategic partners for startups.

Texas 90

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 90