Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 27, 2012

Entrepreneurs can still build big businesses on the outskirts.” David encourages entrepreneurs to stay away from the big tech firms (such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple) because they are hard to compete with. We once thought nobody could unseat Google since all inbound traffic to the web came from them.

Silicon Valley 299

Silicon Valley Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder 299

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

3:35 The real entrepreneurs come out during a down economy. 8:17 How did you decide to go with either shrinkwrap or web only product? 19:30 A teachable moment for entrepreneurs: HAVE A HYPOTHESIS! 44:45 Telling an entrepreneur to focus is like telling a fat person to lose weight. 00:45 Intro to Eric. 48:30 Vanity metrics.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Lean Social Media PR 301

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

.” * I first wrote about the changes to the Venture Capital ecosystem 10 years ago and this still serves as a good primer of how we arrived at 2011, a decade on from the Web 1.0 And the truth is that several entrepreneurs prefer it this way. dot-com bonanza. Seed has become an option factory for many.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

One of the great joys of doing the web series This Week in VC every week is that I get to spend time with great people debating the issues of our day including how our industry is evolving as well as insights into how companies got started, got their initial traction and dealt with adversities. Oh, yeah. Positive feedback feeds the idea.

Connecticut 286

Connecticut Cofounder Silicon Valley Web 286

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

But there are a lot of things that become norms in the VC industry that always drove me crazy from entrepreneur’s side of the table. Translation for any first time entrepreneurs can mean one of: a. As an entrepreneur you’re used to being optimistic and finding a way to make things work despite the odds. I get that.

Entrepreneur 297

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Java Ruby 297

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

And I had been telling my partners for a couple of years that I thought Ethan was one of the more talented entrepreneurs I had come across in San Francisco. We generally have a policy to only fund entrepreneurs once the first version of a product has shipped or it near to shipping. We like to be able to see the concept.

Southern California 359

Southern California San Francisco CTO Hire SEM 359

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

This time frame – 2005/2006 – web 2.0 2. “…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

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She actually IS the prototypical entrepreneur. This was the first in her string of web properties. But Tracy did what entrepreneurs do. Sam is the managing director of Launchpad LA and we were about to pick our 2012 class of entrepreneurs. She exudes many of the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur.

Silicon Valley 363

Silicon Valley Cofounder Entrepreneur Startup 363

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

One of the most common questions that entrepreneurs who meet me for the first time like to ask is, “Do you miss being an entrepreneur? I thought I’d talk a bit about the differences I’ve experienced between being an entrepreneur & a VC – you know, from “both sides of the table.&#. On Being an Entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur 384

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 384

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Entrepreneurs are supposed to have insights that others don’t have and we’re supposed to be good judges about which entrepreneurs and executives have both the most clever ideas and the right skill sets to do transformational things against all odds. We think we’re supposed to act smart and have insights that others don’t possess.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

Two weeks after Brad’s post I was at the 140 Conference in LA and I held open office hours for any entrepreneur who wanted to spend 15 minutes talking with a VC about their business. But it turns out I met a bunch of really interesting entrepreneurs. But TWTFelipe is an entrepreneur. We should be taking advantage.

Technical Review 282

Technical Review Canada Green South Carolina 282

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

Where Stealth is Good – There’s a lot of discussions on the web about whether startups should be stealthy before they launch or not. I actually like finding entrepreneurs who are more circumspect, less braggadocios and generally more planned about their actions. That’s fine if entrepreneurs are your target market.

Early Stage 380

Early Stage Stealth Marketing Startup 380

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

This was an audience of mostly first-time entrepreneurs. I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs. What a bubble means for each entrepreneur.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Or how about the best example – Loic Le Meur gets everybody over to Paris every year for Le Web. From the local wins you get pools of money from tech entrepreneurs and investors eager to reinvest it back into the community – the most likely source of a return on their capital. LA has the annual Monty Conference.

Community 378

Community San Diego Silicon Valley Los Angeles 378

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

It’s apropos because there is so much noise these days with email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, web shows, etc. Here’s the thing: entrepreneurs who aren’t at all of our private meetings really didn’t know what do think about the situation. It sure wasn’t when I was a first-time entrepreneur.

Email 287

Email Bankruptcy Equity Technical Review 287

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). Because many great entrepreneurs work with lawyers in registering their companies they have their ear to the pavement on the earliest of company formations.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

If you’ve got the skills to be a strong entrepreneur then it shouldn’t be too difficult to find people who know a partner at a VC firm and if you can build relationship with them you can get introduced. Most entrepreneurs (and VCs raising from LPs) think this means progress. Entrepreneur : “Sure. Some people find this elitist?—?I

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2011

One of the most common questions that entrepreneurs who meet me for the first time like to ask is, “Do you miss being an entrepreneur? I thought I’d talk a bit about the differences I’ve experienced between being an entrepreneur & a VC – you know, from “both sides of the table.&#. On Being an Entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur 176

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 176

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

He has many of the attributes I look for in an entrepreneur and importantly he has deep domain experience in ad management. The first big wave of this change came from the introduction of the iPhone, which was the first well built mobile device for using the web. He knows the ad management and ad network businesses.

Mobile 282

Mobile Management Southern California Application Development 282

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He is the CEO of Hunch , company that I believe is solving a very big problem that I have been telling entrepreneurs needs to be solved for the past 2 years. Chris runs a popular web interview series on TechCrunch so is used to being the guy asking the questions. If you haven’t checked that out you really should.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Cofounder API 281

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2010

I found that I was always more curious about issues like “why do you charge for your web hosting services this way when newer non-incumbent players do not?&# I have often found entrepreneurs want to present the positive progress of the company to impress the board rather than engage in debate about how to make things better.

Startup 288

Startup Merger Technical Review Framework 288

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2010

Your measurements are automatically sent via wi-fi to the cloud and stored in a password protected portal viewed on the web or on your iPhone. It’s two young guys who both dropped out of college to pursue their dream of becoming entrepreneurs. I’m not that public about my weight.

Technical Review 278

Technical Review Software Review Alabama Silicon Valley 278

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

I wrote this on my flight home from f.ounders & web summit in Dublin, Ireland late last year. My trip was scheduled around the annual Web Summit and the f.ounders conference, both of which have become the hottest must-attend event in Europe and rivaling any great conference in the US. The Origins of Web Summit / f.ounders.

Ireland 392

Ireland Global Las Vegas Switzerland 392

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Think of web vs. mobile. Most entrepreneurs I encounter seem to make their decisions more on perceived brand, past successes and ability to intro. You could look for a VC who has huge wins under his or her belt and therefore has a formula for success. Traditional software vs. SaaS. SEO marketing vs. social marketing.

Portfolio 364

Portfolio Chicago Sales Incubator 364

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

In most cases if you can’t get a prototype done you’re probably not an entrepreneur. Professional angels / former entrepreneurs / seed funds – In Silicon Valley there are people like Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Mike Maples and many more. Surround yourself with great advisors or other entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 291

Silicon Valley Ireland Technical Review Valuation 291

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2010

And more embarassingly to me Garindra Prahandono gave me this link to an article written by the guru of web design, Jakob Nielsen about the 1/9/90 rule written back in 2006. But perhaps the lurker category is smaller.

Technical Review 294

Technical Review Distribution Social Network Networking 294

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

Any SoCal entrepreneur raising early-stage money should put Rincon on their short list. He covers this is the first 15 minutes or so of the video and he’s awesome to listen to (more than 25,000 people have listend to this video so far – mostly entrepreneurs ;-)). It is how angel rounds come together.&#.

Silicon Valley 293

Silicon Valley Technical Review Southern California Angel Investor 293

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2010

Anyone who works in the venture business or frankly just lives in Silicon Valley will be used to hearing a buzz word rise up out of nowhere to capture the technology zeitgeist and find its way into every entrepreneur’s product development plan or every aspiring entrepreneur’s pitch deck. My view.

Silicon Valley 296

Silicon Valley Warrant Flash Differentiation 296

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Experienced and serial entrepreneurs in the content management space. Web service architecture that provides a content management platform for the Internet. I met a lot of really bright people that were passionate about and experienced in helping entrepreneurs build successful businesses. Page 2: What’s unique about Koral.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

industry investors rather than VCs) a good idea for entrepreneurs. His view: sometimes entrepreneurs expect too much value from the partner. We also talked about how brands are increasing driving much of their traffic to Facebook and away from their own web pages. Online service offering privacy certification for web sites.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

Yet nearly any entrepreneur who has an idea that other people aren’t doing will tell you that it’s hard to get investors excited. I continue to be excited about the Mobile Web (as distinct from the Mobile App). Investors are conformists by nature. This requires novel thinking. I still love B2B application.

Florida 299

Florida Technical Review San Antonio Los Angeles 299

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

Web Summit. Of course these are great places to network with other investors, meet great entrepreneurs and keep your connections strong with senior execs at larger companies like Yahoo!, 1: You clearly haven’t persuaded the entrepreneurs that you are value-add to their deal. And there’s conferences. Motives matter.

Cofounder 374

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 374

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

I had been thinking a lot about this recently because I’m often asked the question of “what I look for in an entrepreneur when I want to invest?” Back then there was no “cloud” so we had to plow money into hardware, software licenses and web hosting.

Founder 409

Founder Salary Startup Early Stage 409

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

Remember, I was an entrepreneur for 10 years before a VC). Even though I got a “no” he helped me understand why I wasn’t a fit for him and that always set the bar for how I wanted to treat entrepreneurs?—?friendly, even if it’s just a web conference call walk through. Most entrepreneurs don’t put enough effort into these phases.

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

One of the most difficult things to do as a first time entrepreneur is to get to know the investors you might be working with if you accept money. He got into the industry through the same traits required for entrepreneurs – persistence & resiliency. Founded by Shervin Pishevar (COO of Webs). Total raised: $18.3mm.

San Francisco 230

San Francisco Los Angeles Cofounder SMS 230

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 4, 2009

Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company. Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. This is the easiest one for most entrepreneurs. But most good entrepreneurs do this naturally.

Sales 319

Sales Sales Cycle Startup Reputation 319

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

Lee Essner is formerly a senior exec from WeddingChannel and has much experience in running a successful web property. I first met him there and knew he was a talented entrepreneur that I wanted to work with some day. Gyroscope is in double-dog secret stealth mode right now so I’ll focus more on the entrepreneur.

Los Angeles 276

Los Angeles Stealth Securities and Exchange Commission Southern California 276