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

View from Seed

JULY 15, 2020

One topic of conversation among VC’s over the last few months is how their portfolios are faring during the Covid pandemic. So I thought I’d share my observations, informed by what’s going on in our portfolio and from what I can gather from others in the ecosystem.

Portfolio 215

Portfolio IRR Dilution Distribution 215

VC Cafe

JULY 21, 2020

GV (formerly Google Ventures) – Started in 2009, GV is Alphabet’s venture capital fund, focused primarily on early stage in diverse fields: from life sciences and healthcare to robotics and entereprise tech. Notable portfolio companies include Uber, Slack, Jet.com, FlatIron Health, Kobalt Music Group and many others.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Startup Early Stage Cloud 131

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

Reasons for funding. ? Scale up your operations. One of the most prominent reasons for funding is to scale up your operations, for expansion and achieve economies of scale. Now you may want to scale up your operations or expand your presence. The third reason is to fund your short term operational expenses or working capital.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Bessemer started the idea of the “anti-portfolio” – the companies that you passed on, but ended up doing very, very well. . After Honey was acquired by PayPal for $4B a few weeks ago, we thought it was a good time to share the Version One anti-portfolio: Honey. This was not our early-stage sweet spot and the $100M valuation felt rich.

Portfolio 202

Portfolio Cap Table Early Stage Valuation 202

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

State Regulation In addition to federal laws, each State has its own regulatory environment that applies to businesses operating within the state in areas such as land-use , zoning, motor vehicles, state banking, building codes, public utilities, drug laws, etc. How do you get your early customers to advocate on your behalf?

Washington 271

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 271

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

We can stay busy by expending time and effort supporting the existing portfolio, which is the right thing to do and a good use of time. Like most VC’s, we’ve been engrossed in helping our portfolio company founders navigate these challenging times while thinking through how we will approach this market going forward. Wait and see.

Cofounder 194

Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

Hunter Walker

MAY 13, 2023

Especially in the early days of mobile/iOS engineering, if you hired strong technical talent into your early stage company, you basically created an acquisition outcome floor. If over the course of the next year you see any Homebrew portfolio company try this out, I’ll let you know! Very different.

Early Stage 117

Early Stage Cap Table Acquisition Sales 117

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. Ventures that are further along and now executing their business model are no longer startups, they are now early-stage companies.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Running a company is distinctly different from simply having operating experience – (working in bus dev, sales or marketing.) Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. Rolodex/deal flow (deal sourcing/ability to make connections for the portfolio).

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

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. 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?

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 28, 2023

It’s still in the very early stages there, but there is definitely an enthusiastic community to build on. If you’re enthusiastic about any of these themes as an entrepreneur (or for swinging for the fences), there is no such thing as TOO early. This dynamic is truly accelerating the learning curve in India. Please reach out.

Technical Review 73

Technical Review India Canada Early Stage 73

VC Cafe

JANUARY 22, 2021

AI startups in the Alexa Fund portfolio. Amazon AppStore – The Amazon Appstore (mobile/tablet) for Android and Fire OS operated by Amazon.com. AWS Builder Space (Israel) – A non-equity program for early stage startups who are looking to accelerate their speed to market. Commercial and partnerships.

Technical Review 174

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Incubator 174

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

David Teten

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

Before making the decision to join ff Venture Capital , I did some research on early-stage tech investing as an asset class and how it’s evolving. Although any given early-stage company is quite risky, when aggregated across a large portfolio, returns are very attractive. They’re also inflation-hedged.

Early Stage 148

Early Stage Private Equity Portfolio Aggregator 148

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 20, 2020

Highlighted Homebrew Portfolio Jobs. Experienced leadership, well-funded, and hiring in engineering, product and operations. Salonpas patches for back pain because I’m old, Andytown coffee and this GQ article about a band of watch thieves. Orum is a NYC-based financial technology company that makes money move fast.

Early Stage 146

Early Stage Seed Stage Startup Software 146

VC Cafe

APRIL 26, 2023

Some focus on the core model level, developing large language models or diffusion technology for image and video creation, and others operate in the application layer, powering their generative AI experiences by combining one or a number of APIs that are either open source or commercially available.

Generative AI 78

Generative AI Artificial Inteligence ChatGPT 78

View from Seed

JUNE 23, 2022

Automating their end-to-end eCommerce operations (from managing inventory to order fulfillment to customer service). RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? We are cash flow positive and can operate indefinitely without external funding. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube). And your least?

DC 156

DC Cambodia eCommerce Social Media 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2022

For entrepreneurs who really try to be the CEO of multiple early-stage startups concurrently, the hot term for this practice is “multi-table” entrepreneurs. Investors have long argued the value of a portfolio to hedge and leverage the risk, so why shouldn’t entrepreneurs do the same? Optimize your advisers and investors.

Bandwidth 362

Bandwidth Entrepreneur Portfolio Cofounder 362

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

VI: Revenue-based financing: The next step for private equity and early-stage investment. With a portfolio that includes food, tech, and services, the fund is industry-agnostic and focused on the overlooked and underrepresented with high-margin business models. The INTRO tool is available to non-portfolio companies as well.

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 27, 2017

In addition, some cities put an artificial limit on the number of taxi operators by requiring them to buy medallions and agree to a set of local regulations. But today, as disruption happens faster, and is funded at enterprise scale, companies need to figure how to create a portfolio of innovation.

Startup 275

Startup New York City Valuation Distribution 275

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 9, 2023

We’ve made this an operating principle at Foundry. We encourage all our portfolio companies to add multiple independent directors and build diverse boards. I believe that boards with too many investors, without operator voices, are not what an early-stage or growth company needs.

Curation 162

Curation Early Stage Hosting Portfolio 162

David Teten

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

By contrast, as a venture capitalist, I can report that almost all of our portfolio companies are desperate to hire talented software engineers, and eager to hire in a range of other roles. The operational improvement research study I mention above is an example of this. We typically do this by partnering with graduate student teams.

Government 146

Government Technical Review New York Offshore 146

David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

I’ve listed them below in *very* roughly descending order of efficiency, measured by increased dollars one can put to work, divided by the operational dollars required to implement each strategy. . Sophisticated VC and private equity funds have a wide array of options for leveraging outside operating executives.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Our portfolio company Top Hat just closed a $22.5M (USD) Series C round. As such, Top Hat can provide key lessons for early-stage companies: 1. They focused on revenue early on. Top Hat had an early and continuous focus on revenue; they have been operating profitably since their launch in 2009.

Vertical 132

Vertical Technical Review Cofounder Sales Cycle 132

Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 6, 2020

The term “early-stage” covers a lot of territory in venture investing, from incubating a brand-new idea, to investing in a Series A. WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT EARLY-STAGE INVESTING IN THIS MOMENT? You can listen to the podcast here. Below are some of the key highlights from the conversation.

Technical Review 69

Technical Review Seed Stage Software Review Early Stage 69

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

Investment theses are just hypotheses; the portfolio shows how accurate the hypothesis was. A typical VC thesis: “we invest in tech startups in Europe at an early stage” However, our experience shows that in many cases: . Investment theses are just hypotheses; the portfolio shows how accurate the hypothesis was.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

YoungUpstarts

MAY 7, 2019

If followed, we believe it can help startup teams navigate the critical early stages of development – and avoid joining a majority of early stage companies that end up on the entrepreneurial scrap heap. Read on to discover why successfully traversing the Traction Gap is critical to early stage companies.

Cleveland 196

Cleveland Early Stage Framework Startup 196

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. The Pocket Negotiator is very early-stage attempt to aid in the negotiating process itself. . 9% (1 / 12). 1) Market fund.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

9) Accelerate portfolio company value. See Beyond the Money: Best Practices of Venture Capitalists in Helping Early-Stage Companies Create Value and It’s the People: Improving Private Equity Portfolio Company Valuations by Working with Operating Executives.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

9) Accelerate portfolio company value. See Beyond the Money: Best Practices of Venture Capitalists in Helping Early-Stage Companies Create Value and It’s the People: Improving Private Equity Portfolio Company Valuations by Working with Operating Executives.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Think about how profound a difference adding Sheryl Sandberg early at Facebook was to Mark Zuckerberg and knowing that he should stay in charge of product and strategy while she ran operations. For some of my more skeptical portfolio companies I simply asked them to run a trial of inbound sales calls and they were shocked.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage 150

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. Some VCs have identified a number of new advantages that distinguish them in the marketplace: – Portfolio acceleration. – Portfolio company diversity.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. Some VCs have identified a number of new advantages that distinguish them in the marketplace: – Portfolio acceleration. – Portfolio company diversity.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 14, 2016

This can set up a perfect storm if early-stage companies don’t manage their expectations and reality properly. Mattermark (a portfolio company) looked at the matriculation rates for a class of startups. Likewise, early-stage investors may not appreciate just how much follow-on support their portfolio companies will need.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Early Stage Portfolio Valuation 60

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

In recent years, cannabis has emerged as a legal industry, and thus, companies operating in this new market have often had to find or build new software stacks in order to operate their businesses. Dispense is a B2B software company, focused on transaction software specifically designed for the cannabis industry.

Cofounder 234

Cofounder B2B Early Stage Software 234

David Teten

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

Similarly, my research on venture capital portfolio operations found that Portfolio Operator VCs such as Andreesen Horowitz , First Round Capital , ff Venture Capital , and Google Ventures are hiring unusually large teams and structuring them in traditional pyramids. Notes: Only for IT & related sectors.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Equity 114