Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

I think you have to listen to the queue’s.” “…if you look at a lot of the early stage investors, whether it be Union Square Ventures or First Round or Jeff Clavier at Softtech or Dave McClure – we want to try the product, we want to experience the product, we want to get a sense of how the entrepreneur is thinking about it.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

One of the biggest mistakes I see early-stage startups making is hiring “seasoned&# sales professionals or hiring people too senior, too early. The problem is that in an early stage business there probably isn’t a perfect fit between your early product and a customer’s needs.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. The firm focuses on early stage companies in the Northeast but occasionally invests in California startups. I’ve also found him to not be dogmatic either.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Cofounder API 281

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

Santa Monica is the place where the highest concentration of early-stage startups are created if you consider also the contiguous geography of Venice Beach. VC has operated as an “old boys club”, with access to capital often requiring entrance through an elite university engineering department in one of two cities.

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens. In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. You may know how much to pay in cash or equity for your new VP Engineering.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

I’ve had this conversation with several communities such as in San Diego where I believe there are way more qualified and talented engineers than available local capital to support them. If you’re working with early-stage companies you need to be spending quality time with them which means you need to be nearby.

Community 378

Community San Diego Silicon Valley Los Angeles 378

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

In product business it is often measured over multiple purchases and assumptions are made about the repeat rates and in the enterprise or services world LTV can be based on churn rates, which are notoriously hard to predict in an early-stage business. Poorly calculated LTVs can become BVs (bankruptcy values).

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. We are growing faster than at any time in the company’s history (which is a testament to sales, market, product, engineering and of course the founder & ceo!)

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Do you work as a civil engineer on water projects and have great access to wealthy project developers? Make sure these people understand the nature of early-stage angel investing. I think it stands for those people who have money but not the sophistication to understand the world of early-stage tech funding.

Silicon Valley 291

Silicon Valley Ireland Technical Review Valuation 291

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

msuster looking for an inspired post on when an exclusivity deal (w/ major industry player) works (cons as well) for an early stage tech co. — I would trade a 6-month exclusivity for a large, 3-year guaranteed revenue deal in many instances provided I’m an early-stage company looking for my first big contract win.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

The thesis is that before investing in an early-stage startup it is close to impossible to know which of the deals you did will break out to the upside. You’ll find engineers out of MIT, Stanford, Harvard, UCSD, Caltech or execs out of UCLA, Spelman, NYU, etc. to start their next company.

Angel Investor 301

Angel Investor Deal Flow Portfolio Forecast 301

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. Many buying companies price these deals on the basis of $1 million per engineer on the team for an early-stage deal. has now employed the same strategy.

Liquidation Preference 357

Liquidation Preference Early Stage Retention Lock-up Period 357

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

But even he would feel conflicted when I had to cut the engineering team because he valued our product more than his investment. I personally recommend it in the following situation: When you have your A round and/or B round done, the business is progressing well and you’re not early stage.

Strategic Investors 279

Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Plus, most early-stage M&A fails so this isn’t likely a good use of capital for a young company). We want a strong balance sheet (um, ok. but that’s our firm’s money on your balance sheet. if you have a good use for it and we’re excited about your company – fine.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

We knew we had a valuable product that an acquiring company would gain greatly from and a world-class engineering and product team that would be valued by a buyer. I have previously written why I don’t believe in the COO role at early-stage startups. But we did offer Jonathan his second gut check.

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

You know, the weird thing, Derek, and I should probably let you speak some time, but I was deeply technical when I went into Andersen consulting, and I got paid much less than engineers who graduated, because I had a degree in economics. They paid engineers $4,000 more entry-point. Engineering vs. non-engineering. [00:10:32]

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder San Diego Startup 337

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2019

Reasons to Have a Broad Group of Management Present From a non-exec perspective there are some obvious reason board members want to hear from the heads of sales, market, product, HR, engineering, finance and support. It is definitely a good idea to have your executive team at some board meetings and for some of the time of a board meeting.

Management 161

Management Early Stage Finance Conversion 161

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Erin’s main points: “As a former tech sales executive, I agree with many of [Mark's] lessons — when applied to later-stage, post-traction point startups. However, I advocate a more nuanced approach for early-stage startup teams” 1. Specifically, 1. ” She’s right.

Startup 319

Startup Early Stage Sales Cofounder 319

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2013

In part one I covered the need for early-stage enterprise software companies to build up professional services staff to ensure successful implementation projects. This is my third post in a series on Enterprise Software. This goes against the conventional wisdom of VCs. It was a win for all parties.

Egypt 297

Egypt Early Stage Mexico Wiki 297

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

CEOs who are tough but fair-minded set aggressive targets on “time” and communicate clearly with engineering why there is a deadline. There is nothing that will focus the mind more than not wanting to be on stage with a demo that bombs. As an alternative I’ve also found board meetings to be a good rallying call.

Software 344

Software Part-Time VPE Engineer Leadership 344

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

In the old days there usually weren’t convertible notes on early-stage deals and there weren’t party rounds with 20 angels or 6 seed funds. So how DOES a VC think about financings at early stages? If you’re a solo founder and haven’t built out your team or engineers I’m likely to want 15+%.

Pre-Money Valuation 150

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Post-Money Valuation Dilution 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 11, 2015

In this capacity I can tell any entrepreneurs raising early-stage capital that I would have Matt on my short list if I were raising. We brought on Nanea Reeves as President to shore up quality on the product, engineering and ops side. She made an immediate positive impact on our culture, quality and overall product.

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Los Angeles San Francisco Architecture 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

It’s true that the carrier then gets their huge slice for being the billing and payment engine but the idea is that you as a website more than make up for this in terms of customer conversion. It has proven a very successful strategy to get consumers to activate the payment on their mobile phone bill.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

A market leader in content, music, entertainment, textiles, engineering, aerospace and trade. You could argue that choosing the name “first round” paints them into a corner in case they want to ever do a late stage fund, but I suspect they named it FRC precisely because they wanted to excel at early-stage investing.

Community 304

Community Los Angeles Startup Silicon Valley 304

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2019

That is the basic function of a board meeting and this is often 2–4 hours depending on how early-stage or late-stage the company is. At times I’ve enjoyed themes where, for example, one board dinner might invite just 6 members of engineering and another might bring sales.

Networking 262

Networking Conversion Naming Hosting 262

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Their first call is often into one of the above or the many other successful early stage investors including Marc Andreessen, Jeff Clavier or Mike Maples. How about teaching engineering at Stanford and seeing the best & brightest before they’re even out in the wild. Do you have access to that kind of deal flow?

Silicon Valley 306

Silicon Valley Deal Flow Angel Investor Cofounder 306

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

Other firms like Google bring massive resources to design or engineering and as as corporate VC can offer things normal VC firms can’t offer. Nearly every startup I have spoken to over the years – including some where I’m a co-investor – talks positively about the support they’ve gotten from A16Z.

Portfolio 150

Portfolio PR Partner Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

It’s not uncommon for incredibly smart and talented Phd’s or CS majors from Stanford to raise $10 million on an early-stage “platform&# that if it succeeds it will be huge. LA generally doesn’t have an appetite for this kind of investment at early stages. LA investors are more pragmatic.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Technology Los Angeles Southern California 290

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

We want to invest in early-stage technology enabled startup businesses – upfront in the funding cycle. But putting no time into anchoring your beliefs because you’re too busy executing sales, marketing, support, product & engineering is an easy recipe for leadership drift. Conviction.

Leadership 150

Leadership Southern California San Diego Hiring 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

If you’re a very early stage startup that just raised your first angel money it is very possible that the funding announcement will be your first big tech news. I don’t be swayed by those who tell you otherwise. There are reasons you may delay funding announcement but rarely reasons not to announce.

Startup 355

Startup PR Dividend Merger 355

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

Paul Graham and the folks over at YCombinator have done much to reenergize early-stage entrepreneurship and encourage the creation of many new and innovative startups including DropBox, Posterous, Loopt, Justin.TV, Scribd and many others. HN and Techmeme are the main two tech aggregators that I frequently skim.

Aggregator 258

Aggregator Naming Early Stage Email 258

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

We spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about industry trends (in this order): The history and background of True Ventures, one of my favorite early-stage VC’s (and the one with whom Om is a venture partner). Real-time search engine. 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

AUGUST 29, 2012

We sat down for an hour to talk about why what GaiKai built was able to overcome its much better funded rival and to dispel the myth that great engineering teams don’t exist in Southern California. GaiKai had 50 such engineers, which was a large part of its success. I agree with him. Everyone follow him @scottedwalker.

Southern California 279

Southern California Detroit Los Angeles California 279

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

So by offering convertible debt you can avoid a price discussion in the same way that angel investors sometimes do in order to win competitive early-stage deals. They might not replace an engineer or two that quits. You don’t want to have a perpetual tin cup in your hands begging for scraps to exist.

Startup 290

Startup Burn Rate Warrant Bankruptcy 290

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

It you have a great software engineer that’s awesome. This is a BIG mistake many early stage companies make. I just wanted to list some of the most value destroying mistakes I see many early-stage entrepreneurs make. Ask if they’d be willing to pay for a solution like that if it existed.

Founder Vesting 365

Founder Vesting Intellectual Property Stock Options IP 365

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

When you’re an early-stage startup that hasn’t raised any institutional money you end up doing almost every job function of the company yourself. I hired a senior exec from the building materials industry (we were a document collaboration company for the engineering & construction industry) who was also ex McKinsey.

Founder 299

Founder Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 299