Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Of course it’s much harder to identify “emerging managers” who it turns out have been some of the best performers over the past 5-7 years such as Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, First Round Capital, True Ventures, Greycroft, Foundry Group, Thrive and Upfront Ventures. .” 2007 was the watershed year.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Embrace technical debt Financial debt plays an important and positive role in our economy under normal conditions. Technical debt works the same way, and has the same perils. I won’t pretend that there aren’t teams that take on technical debt for bad reasons.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

The Startup Magazine

NOVEMBER 25, 2017

M&A due diligence is the primary application of the VDR. During business mergers or acquisitions there’s plenty of research and document reviews. Fundraising mandates involve lots of document and data sharing during due diligence investigation. IP Management. Strategic Partnerships.

Software Review 60

Software Review Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. As a reminder, the Dot Com bubble was a five-year period from August 1995 (the Netscape IPO ) when there was a massive wave of experiments on the then-new internet, in commerce, entertainment, nascent social media, and search.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 31, 2020

When anyone asks what investors look for in startups , typical answers include an experienced management team, a large market for their product or service, growth potentials, uniqueness. In the same vein, various technological innovations such as artificial intelligence have made VC funding easier and less biased. Conclusion.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Startup Term Sheet 175

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 14, 2016

Every announcement – whether it was a funding round, exit or layoffs – was analyzed within the context that the tech bubble has definitely burst or that we’re still in the bubble. At the same time, seed money is still abundant due to the proliferation of micro VC over the past few years. So, what really happened in 2016?

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Early Stage Portfolio Valuation 60

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

In this essay by one of Mercia’s Fund Principals, Ian Wilson, Ian talks about the sorts of things he and the team are looking for when plans come to them for review. The management team. Management team. Management team. Central to any investment opportunity is the management team. Republished with permission.

Business Plan 92

Business Plan Technical Review Initial Public Offering Due Diligence 92

Eric Friedman

JANUARY 3, 2020

I am welcoming the 20’s with an enthusiasm I haven’t felt in awhile and more bullish than ever on technology and investing in general. This one directly pulled from Range and the original Game Boy that has the infamous spinach colored screen and still dominated against full color competition due to these constraints.

Technical Review 79

Technical Review Software Review Vertical IPO 79

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” He or she has worked at some very successful big technology or media companies and went to a great school. the standard 4-6% for a hired-gun CEO).

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? Often times, it seems like people are thinking its synonymous with "that guy who gets paid to sit in the corner and think technical deep thoughts" or "that guy who gets to swoop in a rearrange my project at the last minute on a whim." I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

Demonstrate your team’s unique unfair competitive advantage, whether it is technology, stellar management team, or key partnerships. Be prepared for due diligence. It’s critical that the data you present is verifiable, since any serious investor will conduct extensive due diligence. Define your partnerships.

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2018

by Rebecca Stidham, Senior Manager – Tax Services at OUM & Co. These tax liabilities, which many companies believe don’t exist, can turn into a heavy burden in the event that a company seeks investors, financing, IPO or sale. Rebecca Stidham is Senior Manager – Tax Services at OUM & Co.

South Dakota 160

South Dakota North Dakota Wyoming United States 160

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

Our categorization is not a technical one. As two fund managers employing Flexible VC, we think it is a healthy addition to the ecosystem and will yield more predictable and stable healthy returns for investors. Additionally, Flexible VC can accommodate all types of companies, not just asset-lite, tech-enabled companies.”.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. So I think the hardest role to fill in a startup is a Product Management role.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. This engineering manager is a smart guy, and very experienced.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, June 2, 2010 The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review) I continue my series for Harvard Business Review with the Lean Startup technique called Five Whys. You can view previous essays in this series here: Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Speed up or slow down?

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Posted on September 14, 2009 by steveblank Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. On top of all this it was considered very bad form not to have at least four additional consecutive quarters of profits after an IPO.)

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 25, 2015

The key reason for the explosion in capital flowing into the industry, and therefore the large increase in practitioners, had nothing to do with 1970’s performance, early stage investing, or technology. So contrary to the piece, it wasn’t VC were good at early stage technology, it was that they had newfound capital and a big exit window.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital SBIC Technical Review Silicon Valley 70

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

When I was running startups I felt like a horse with blinders on because I was super focused on the content management market and ignored many other markets. The problems are much more manageable. We have very small teams – When you’re in your twenties you aspire to manage teams.

Technical Review 312

Technical Review Due Diligence Spain Warrant 312

David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

Managers of VC funds typically want to grow their business aggressively, just like the founders we back. This is a model used in at least one case by China’s third-largest private equity firm, China Science & Merchants Investment Management Group ($12 billion+ AUM), which funded in 2015 CSC Upshot, a $400m seed fund through AngelList.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 27, 2014

Some, such as Chinese mobile company Xiaomi, were founded less than five years ago while others such as Good Technology have been around for more than a decade. One key difference between the late ‘90s tech scene and now are macroeconomic factors. Technology ubiquity. Cross-border supply of capital. Which leads to….

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Valuation Venture Capital Investment Bankers 63

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

Foundry Group is best known for our investments in startups, but our vehicle currently investing in other venture funds, Foundry Group Next, is off to what we believe to be a great start and I wanted to share an update about it by talking about our new investment in a fund managed by Founder Collective. It starts with the people.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. Also, because the entire industry has changed because it is cheaper to start a tech company these days – there are simply way more angel rounds. Why prorata rights are becoming a bigger deal to angels.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, January 7, 2010 Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? for Harvard Business Review) Im excited to have just published the first of several articles on entrepreneurship for the Harvard Business Review online. Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? - Without further ado.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2019

If you aren’t familiar with these metrics, I recommend reading the original post to get a sense of the numbers that I’ll be reviewing here. Most LPs are trying to manage some targeted asset allocation. And over time, if VC is performing well, the LP may actively manage up their allocation to venture. LP Constraints.

LP 256

LP IRR Distribution Portfolio 256

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. This is the approach of test-driven-development (TDD). Please leave feedback!)

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. One of them is profitability.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 14, 2012

Bonnstetter | Harvard Business Review – [link]. Does Tech Create Jobs Around the U.S.? Nine Ways Successful People Defeat Stress | Heidi Grant Halvorson -Harvard Business Review – [link]. 20 Tech Trends That Will Define 2013, Selected By Frog|Co.Design – [link]. Vision vs. Pivot | QUIBB – [link].

Social Media 100

Social Media Small Business Design Media 100

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

We All Know That Dollars into Venture Have Gone Up … As a starting point, we know that the dollars into venture have steadily rebounded to pre great-recession levels, with just under $30 billion committed to US technology venture capital in 2015. …But LPs Have Been Putting Out More Money Than They Are Getting Back.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital LP Silicon Valley Marketing 150

VC Adventure

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

AdExchanger just posed an interview that I did with them that touched on some of our ad-tech investments as well as our overall investment philosophy. Unlike many venture capital firms that invest in certain geographic regions or specific technologies and sectors, Foundry Group’s investing activity is largely driven by a thematic approach.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital IPO 60

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Google is still a private company (their IPO was Aug 2004). Silicon Valley is still emerging from the tech bubble and massive downturn of late 2000-2002. And obviously all the liq prefs went away in the IPO when pref stock converted to common. How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. I was the junior guy on a project team; I was called in to do some technical due diligence for reasons that were obscure to me, because the team already had much more senior engineers assigned to it. As a technical fix, it was brilliant.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 25, 2011

73 Essential Social Media & Tech Resources for Small Businesses – [link]. Excellent tips for startups on hiring product managers – [link]. Interesting perspective on LinkedIn’s IPO – arguing that the IPO price was reasonable – [link]. Where are the women? – [link].

Social Media 86

Social Media Small Business Design Media 86

Growthink Blog

MAY 29, 2012

Unfortunately, lost in too much of the "dramatic" coverage of the Facebook IPO has been the real lessons to be learned for those interested in successful technology and growth company investing. Part of the confusion is understandable.

IPO 85

IPO Stock Technical Review Valuation 85

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 5, 2012

Five Tips To Improve Employee Performance Reviews – [link]. The ideal product manager – [link]. Five Tips To Improve Employee Performance Reviews – [link]. Some Thoughts On The IPO Market For Web Companies (by @fredwilson) – [link]. The ideal product manager – [link]. – [link].

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There’s too much PR and too many tech blogs and too many newsletters and aggregators and Twitter summarizers to even try to catch everything that’s going on and equally there’s so much noise that it becomes harder to be heard. I still plan to keep more normal pace of investment which is 1-2 deals per year.

Software Review 150

Software Review Turkey Portfolio Syndicate 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

He was running to be the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles and he outlined his vision to “open up the city government to technology and innovation” if he were elected. He wanted to bring the same level of technology focus and energy that Mayor Bloomberg had brought to New York City. link] The Snap IPO Happened. What Next LA?

IPO 191

IPO Los Angeles South Korea Armenia 191