Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

See we have JPL that designed the rockets that put men on the moon in the first place and Caltech, one of the two most prestigious engineering universities in the country.

Los Angeles 321

Los Angeles Portfolio Hosting Media 321

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2014

We graduate more engineers in our greater region than anywhere else in the US. We have top 25 engineering schools than anywhere else, too. We have a large number of highly talented engineers and entrepreneurs now developing companies in our local market. Buying local teams with talented engineering groups. Maker Studios.

Los Angeles 318

Los Angeles Silicon Valley LP Warrant 318

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Your goal is to invest in engineering (to maintain your product lead), new offices / locations (to capture markets before others), marketing (to capture consumer attention before others do) … all of these activities consume cash often in advance of the revenue they generate. Think DropBox, Airbnb, Uber, Maker Studios.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

I must admit I discuss this very frequently with portfolio companies but hadn’t thought to write about it. Paid Engineering – One final thing I would often ask for that I see very few others doing is “paid engineering.” I need to give credit for the topic to PR Malloy who Tweeted me this question.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

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

APRIL 13, 2011

And what happens is you have a lot of people that are either engineering or non-engineering that end up in PM roles that can’t think across the whole thing… “. You have a company called Oblong (in your portfolio) which is a Minority Report type company. That is a personality type. On the Startup Visa Program.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

I helped make this decision by “triangulating&# between our DBA, lead technical architect and our VP of Engineering (who had a better grasp of the financial costs & development costs of each decision). I also make visits to senior level customers of portfolio companies with which I’m involved.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

Each VC has their own take on which services to provide and mostly they’re free but some smaller VCs charge portfolio companies for use of these services but usually at a cheap cost. 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.

Portfolio 150

Portfolio PR Partner Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

And these ideas have ways of seeping into board discussions with portfolio companies as in, “have you ever thought about trying A, B or C?&# While all your competitors are trying to copy your model, you’re already on to the next thing on your engineering team.

Early Stage 380

Early Stage Stealth Marketing Startup 380

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 11, 2015

You hear about the proverbial Silicon Valley VC who cuts bait in tough times and moves on to other, less problematic portfolio companies. We brought on Nanea Reeves as President to shore up quality on the product, engineering and ops side. That’s not Matt. He’s a gentleman.

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Los Angeles San Francisco Architecture 150

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. Make sure to reference check with other portfolio companies. He was a needle in a haystack in that I think he really cared about my success. How have they behaved in good times and bad?

Strategic Investors 279

Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Other players such as Obopay have set out to focus on mobile person-to-person cash transfers, mFoundry (a GRP portfolio company) has focused on mobile banking and a mobile wallet and one of my favorite companies m-via is focusing on mobile remittances (right now between the US and Mexico).

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

The most obvious way to know about your contact’s influence is to network with portfolio companies or other entrepreneurs that have pitched this VC before and get their insights. And frankly if you do get a term sheet one day these are the people you’ll be working with so the more you know them (and their reputation) the better.

Partner 308

Partner Term Sheet Sales Portfolio 308

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

A market leader in content, music, entertainment, textiles, engineering, aerospace and trade. A quick survey of their portfolio tells you just how many high-profile startups have included them in their rounds. An innovator in technology, especially monetization. I know that I call them often to co-invest. I’ve come to accept it.

Community 304

Community Los Angeles Startup Silicon Valley 304

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

Real-time search engine. Will expand IBM’s business analytics capabilities and become part of IBM’s application and integration middleware portfolio. But it’s a real phenomenon. You can listen to Om, Paul & I debate the topic in the video. We then went through the week’s VC deals: DEAL OF THE WEEK: Collecta.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

You need to say “no” faster to things you know you’re not going to fund based on fit, focus, geography, quality of concept, conflicts with portfolio. What I’m saying is that you can’t spend all of your time in email working your inbox. The temptation in our business can be to “take meetings.”

Technical Review 317

Technical Review Incubator IPO Email 317

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

But the short answer is that the best intro is from a portfolio company of that VC or by other entrepreneurs whom that VC respects. You need to build genuine relationships with these portfolio startup founders as well as trust with them and the rest will follow. I wrote a longer post on how to access VCs that you should read.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

The basic components are obvious: talented founders, great engineers, angel money, venture capital, access to larger corporates (for business, funding & talent), great education / research (for IP breakthroughs) and a sufficient ecosystem of mentors, advisors, executive coaches and mavens. Welcome to the future.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Kansas City Startup Venture Capital 390

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Most are sitting on large portfolios of private companies that are raising money now or will need to do so in the future and they know that they’re up against some headwinds. So deals get delayed as investors feel out prices and also spend time worrying about their own portfolios. There is reason for despondency.

Valuation 150

Valuation Down Round Startup Later Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2011

This version has some additional details on a portfolio company I’ve invested in, which are disclosed below. Sure, if Zuckerberg thought that check-ins were the single most important part of his future business and put 200 engineers on the problem and all of their market might, they’d squash FourSquare like a bug. I chuckled.

SMS 325

SMS Non-Compete Differentiation Social Network 325

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

I always try hard to make this blog a place where you can learn lessons rather than an advertisement for portfolio companies. I know we will be retailer friendly rather than becoming the lost-common-denominator comparison shopping engine.

Term Sheet 303

Term Sheet Mobile Cofounder Early Stage 303

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

I thought about things I never had to as an entrepreneur: check size, ownership percentage, deal stage, portfolio construction and risk. When the market tanked they had the “triage problem&# – which portfolio companies to save, which to kill. Companies raised too much money in 2005-08 and had high burn rates. My prognosis?

Stock 305

Stock Technical Review Marketing Greece 305

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2011

VC Delta is scraping websites of VCs and Tweeting when they add new portfolio companies to their websites making it easier to track when other VCs are doing. Corporations are monitoring service outages based on user Tweets. Companies are monitoring competitor movements. But what about those not sending Tweets saying, “Yes We Can?

Florida 324

Florida API Seattle Semantic 324