View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

At the beginning, a startup team is typically just a couple of co-founders. What we suggest at this juncture is that founders get acclimated to the tactics of scaling beyond the founding team. What to Address During Genesis Team Building: How do we divide and conquer responsibilities as co-founders? Below, I take a look at each.

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Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 120

View from Seed

DECEMBER 17, 2015

I recently chatted with Saurya about how he approaches hiring engineers at Google and what founders can learn. We also talked about how he’d want to be interviewed if approached by a non-technical startup founder. (I’ve How do you position yourself as the latter if you’re a seed-stage startup founder?

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Technical Review Engineer Software Review Founder 120

View from Seed

APRIL 14, 2020

VCs are always founder focused no matter the market environment. But in a FOMO world, more investors are willing to take a chance on a founder that they don’t know, but seems to match some of the heuristics of other high quality founders. This gets really challenging if it remains difficult to meet in person or to travel.

Early Stage 374

Early Stage Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence 374

View from Seed

MAY 14, 2019

A number of blog posts recently have mentioned this, but we seem to be experiencing a rise in repeat founders starting new businesses and raising seed capital. We’re also seeing a wave of folks who were not founders, but were star players among the first 25 folks at a unicorn company also starting new companies.

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Founder Agile Cofounder Seed Capital 256

View from Seed

JULY 5, 2022

Founder: Connor Cash. Get to know the founder. I’m Connor Cash, the founder of Caesar and I grew up outside of Boston but currently live in DC! RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? CC: Being a founder is a rollercoaster ride. . Company: Caesar Sustainability. ” – Lee Hower.

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DC Software Review Government Boston 156

View from Seed

JANUARY 31, 2024

Consequently, nearly every founder is attempting to weave an AI narrative into their ventures, regardless of its necessity or fit, which will likely lead to an unhealthy market environment and potentially drown out genuine opportunities. A less encouraging similarity is the deluge of capital and the suspension of disbelief in the AI space.

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Web Generative AI Houston Distribution 168

View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2014

Editor’s note: Understanding how to divide founder equity at a startup can be tricky, even to the point of reaching emotional riffs between founders. I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder.

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Equity Founder Sweat Equity Cofounder 315

View from Seed

APRIL 6, 2021

You have 4-6 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, or investor in New York. You have a deep desire to learn the venture capital business and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. Who Are We Looking For. You are a native of NYC tech with a strong network. You act as an “ invited guest.”.

Technical Review 317

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage Cofounder 317

View from Seed

JULY 8, 2020

Over the intervening years, we’ve heard continued and consistent feedback about the value of it for seed stage Founders in providing both strategic thought and tactical help in assembling their post-financing investor communications. Again, we’ve put together the full template here for founders to utilize.

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Email Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 331

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. This one is controversial.

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IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

On the positive side for a founder, directly stating a high valuation expectation up front can anchor the negotiations to a higher level, assuming that an investor takes the leap of faith to invest. After angels, larger venture firms are probably next in terms of how variable they are when reacting to seed pricing asks by founders.

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Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

Founders do not have this luxury. Most founders are going through hell right now, and that is not going away any time soon. For investors and founders, the next several years are going to be very different. Pre-seeds will be tougher as investors gravitate more towards proven founders or folks within their existing networks.

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Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2021

The objection goes something like this: “yes, I can see rookie founders turning to you for a seed round. But won’t all good founders go to established firms that raise series A’s out of the gate?”. And quite a few founders make the choice to do YC first rather than raise a traditional seed or pre-seed round.

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Dilution Later Stage Portfolio Technical Review 399

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. This one is controversial.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

Through all of this, what has been obvious is her hunger to serve founders and desire to work with entrepreneurs to bring about the kind of world changing impact we seek to be a part of at NextView. We have a model that allows us to be very flexible in how we engage with founders and co-investors. Thank you for reading this.

Cofounder 156

Cofounder San Francisco Portfolio Limited Partner 156

View from Seed

JULY 6, 2020

You have 4-6 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, or investor in New York. You have a deep desire to learn the venture capital business and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. . Who Are We Looking For. You are a native of NYC tech with a strong network. You act as an “ invited guest.”.

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Technical Review Software Review Hiring Seed Stage 257

View from Seed

MARCH 11, 2020

When a founder is raising money, he/she should expect that any serious investor will conduct some level of due diligence before getting to yes. They tend to have some sort of framework in their mind with a hierarchy of conviction and hierarchy of pain they are willing to put founders through.

Technical Review 279

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Seed Stage 279

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. This one is controversial.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

View from Seed

AUGUST 9, 2016

They’ve recently expanded to working with investors too, as our own Rob Go joined Reboot founder Jerry Colonna, fellow VC Brad Feld, and several others at their very first VC Summit. ( In our podcast series together, Reboot and NextView will focus on communication and leadership challenges facing startup founders specifically.

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Leadership Founder Cofounder Channel 120

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Deep Domain Expertise at the Helm Sincera Founders Mike O’Sullivan and Ian Meyers bring to the table a rich expertise and domain knowledge in the ad tech space. Their extensive experience, spanning tenures at LiveRamp, Index Exchange, Roku, Criteo, Microsoft, and AppNexus, provides both technical and strategic depth to the company.

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Metadata Technical Review Advertising Angel Investor 177

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

You have 5-10 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, and/or investor. You have a deep desire to hone your skills as a venture capitalist and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. You have a strong network in the NYC startup ecosystem that is additive to our team. You are hungry. A Final Note.

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Technical Review North America Seed Stage Bandwidth 156

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

As seed rounds have atomized, it’s not uncommon for founders to raise 3 or even 4 rounds prior to a series A. The reality is that if a founder raised every one of these rounds, and lead investors always got their “target” ownership, the level of dilution would be ridiculous. Founders with limited experience. should be avoided.

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Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

View from Seed

JANUARY 15, 2020

Are present with founders. Don’t’ share private information or gossip about founders and companies. Treat founder’s time as costly, not costless. Don’t ask “who else are you talking to” or “who else is in” unless founders have already referenced other investors. Not distracted or unfocused or on their phones. Don’t ghost.

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Cap Table Florida Portfolio Founder 166

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 14, 2017

Dan Reich is the CEO and co-founder of Troops, a company bringing artificial intelligence to your sales team’s workflow, right in Slack. The post How Smart Founders Vet Tech Talent for Coding and Culture [Traction #36: Dan Reich, Troops] appeared first on NextView Ventures. Disclosure: NextView is an investor in Troops.).

Artificial Inteligence 159

Artificial Inteligence Seed Stage Founder Cofounder 159

View from Seed

AUGUST 9, 2019

One of my favorite descriptions we use half in jest is that a founder seems like a “smiling killer” This is a compliment, I promise. This means that the founder strikes a very delicate balance that is very hard to pull off. First, the founder just seems like a great person.

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Founder Leadership Startup Developer 120

View from Seed

MAY 24, 2021

You have 4-6 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, or investor in New York. You have a deep desire to learn the venture capital business and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. Who Are We Looking For. You are a native of NYC tech with a strong network. You act as an “ invited guest.”.

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Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage Cofounder 120

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

I’d argue that successful founders must actually possess a superpower to make the nearly impossible task of getting a startup off the ground become a reality. Yet despite their differences, each of these powers give founders the ability to perform superhuman tasks. Heat-Seeking (Enhanced Senses). Superspeed.

Founder 120

Founder Entrepreneur Early Stage Portfolio 120

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

Doing Reference Checks on VCs “Try to speak to at least one founder that the investor has worked with in a failed investment. The Seed VC Decision Tree “If the market is attractive and there just isn’t great founder/market fit, we will be open minded as well. This is not always easy to do. ” (Rob Go).

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Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Instead, it’s more of a Manifesto about the core beliefs that shape our strategy. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early.

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North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

They are disciplined about their time, their strategy, the way they engage with founders, and the way they fight to develop an independent point of view. Seek high-slope founders with great FMF (Founder/Market fit) and FGTMF (Founder/GoToMarket fit). But the best investors I find are not dogmatic.

Early Stage 120

Early Stage Florida Deal Flow Venture Capital 120

View from Seed

MAY 31, 2023

For example, a 2009 study conducted by Paul Gompers and David Scharfstein, “Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship”, found that failed founders have the same chances of success¹ as novice founders, but prior success does increase the odds of future success. I reached out to a dozen founders using the criteria of: 1.

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Silicon Valley Cofounder Term Sheet Founder 156

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

After 12 years of hearing startup pitches, my favorite first 5 minutes came from John Katzman, the founder of 2U. He was a repeat founder looking to do something ambitious, but he was months away from launch, raising $5M out of the gate. What does your company actually do? Often, this happens because of one of two reasons.

Southern California 159

Southern California Phoenix Technical Review Seed Stage 159

View from Seed

OCTOBER 31, 2018

When I first met Properly’s co-founder/CEO Ben Kubic , I was immediately drawn to his vision of leveraging technology to completely redesign the home selling process and his execution horsepower. We firmly believe that the Properly process is how the home-selling process should be; fast, hassle-free, and based on real-time market analysis.”.

Atlanta 159

Atlanta Cofounder Software Review Technical Review 159

View from Seed

MARCH 5, 2015

But I do think it’s pretty successful to pattern-match based on founders. When an investor has success with a particular profile of founder, they tend to be enamored by founders of a similar ilk. For me personally, I tend to be obsessed with what I would call deterministic, design-focused product founders.

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Founder Matching Portfolio eCommerce 120

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

And it’s amazed me how many times I’ve seen two or more entirely separate groups of founders?—?without Rather than just a harmless, misplaced attitude, this copycat fallacy can be a detriment to seed stage founders for two reasons. without any knowledge of the other’s activities?—?independently

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Seed Stage Startup Cofounder Stealth 120

View from Seed

OCTOBER 5, 2016

As a founder, if you have a power alley in a specific functional role or the startup itself will strike a chord with people in that functional specialty, look to add prominent thinkers (especially local ones) in that space to the affinity list. Affinity by function. Marketing people love to swim with other marketing gurus.

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Angel Investor Boston Seed Stage Syndicate 332

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

I wonder if the types of founders that succeed at the application layer tend to look quite different at different moments in an innovation wave. USV performed extraordinarily well backing hacker-style founders during the Web2.0 Think Alexis Ohanian or David Karp or Caterina Fake, or Matt Mullenweg or Cyan Bannister.

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Generative AI Founder Technology Naming 218