article thumbnail

The NextView Ventures Manifesto

View from Seed

Lead investors are few. Leads that are true force-multipliers are exceedingly rare. Although seed funding has exploded since we started Nextview, we continue to hear the refrain from founders that there are tons of investors that will pile-in on a round that is coming together, but that lead investors are few and far between.

article thumbnail

Failure and Redemption

Steve Blank

In my mind, I had done everything the investors asked me to do. We hired everyone according to our plan. My wife was a great partner here. When my co-founders and I got the company scalable and repeatable, we hired an operating executive as the CEO and returned a billion dollars to each of our two lead investors.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Announcing a Deal I’ve Wanted to Talk About for a Year

Both Sides of the Table

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). I told Ethan on the spot that I wanted to be the lead investor in his new company. Let me not bury the lede.

article thumbnail

Failure and Redemption

Steve Blank

In my mind, I had done everything the investors asked me to do. We hired everyone according to our plan. My wife was a great partner here. When my co-founders and I got the company scalable and repeatable, we hired an operating executive as the CEO and returned a billion dollars to each of our two lead investors.

article thumbnail

Your Startup Is Dying — Now What?

David Teten

Existing investors have said they’d be glad to invest…if she gets a new lead investor, which 6 months of searching have failed to generate. Lewis Gersh, a former VC and CEO of Pebblepost (in which I’m an investor), observes, “Investors love good news, and can handle bad news, but will not tolerate surprises.

Startup 60
article thumbnail

Is @AngelList Syndicates Really Such a Big Deal?

Both Sides of the Table

It’s hard to be a great lead investor . VCs take their time precisely for the reason Fred articulates – they play the role of “lead investor.” interviewing critical hires at a time where they have 3 other offers. They will have to help get the next round done. In fact, very few are.

Syndicate 356
article thumbnail

Congratulations to Upwork

A Crowded Space

Very shortly after I joined, Greg Gretsch (now my partner at Jackson Square Ventures) co-led oDesk’s Series A along with Venky Ganesan (partner at Menlo Ventures and lead investor in Rev.com). While it may seem obvious, I can say that hiring mistakes are what taught me the most.