BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 10, 2005

I was in a board meeting yesterday reviewing the sales pipeline for a portfolio company walking through the wins and losses. As I wrote in an earlier post , it is extremely important (to the extent you can), to get good data on your losses. Many times you learn more from your losses than from your wins. We like to know who we lost to and why. We keep a running tab of these losses so we can figure out some key trends, how our competitors are selling against us, and determine what sales tactics we

Sales 60

Sales Technical Review Software Review Portfolio 60

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 9, 2005

I admire entrepreneurs for the risk they take and the unerring confidence they have in their product and market opportunity. However, what separates some of the great entrepreneurs from the average ones is an ability to acknowledge your weaknesses. As we all know, being an entrepreneur is a difficult job that is 24/7. Creating a new product or service can be draining but also quite rewarding emotionally and financially.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Web Entrepreneur Customer 60

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 29, 2005

I had a meeting last week where an entrepreneur insisted on showing me a demo first. He was scrambling around asking for wireless keys and looking for ethernet jacks, while I sat there and tried to engage him in conversation. He lost my interest right then and there. As I started to think more about it, I thought it would be helpful to share some of my thoughts on how to make the first VC pitch a better experience for all participants. 1.

Elevator Pitch 68

Elevator Pitch NDA Caching Agile 68

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 26, 2005

I decided to go for a nice run today in the 30 degree weather to get a little mental relaxation. I was debating whether or not to bring my ipod mini and checked to see the battery life which showed about 3/4 full. So I was in the middle of my run charging up a hill when my ipod just dies out. I have to tell you that Apple has done a nice job with the iPod making it easy and user-friendly for everyone but the battery and hardware problems just bother me.

Cost 60

Cost Customer Developer Product 60

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in

Startup

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 21, 2005

As an early stage VC, I spend a fair amount of time helping entrepreneurs build their management teams. I have written about what we look for (read the A-Player Domino Effect ), the hiring process , and other facets of recruiting talent in previous posts. One area which I cannot overemphasize is the need for companies to do back channel references on candidates.

Channel 60

Channel Due Diligence Early Stage Portfolio 60