Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

The number of startups rose in 2015 for the first time in five years, with the largest year-over-year increase in two decades. Who would not want to joint the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)? Successful startup teams today have a mix of remote employees, freelancers, and contractors.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

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David Teten

DECEMBER 15, 2018

Consider approaching one of the small number of funds which acquire tech startups, e.g., Constellation Software , Think3; Vista Equity Partners. Here are a few articles I suggest reviewing: How to gracefully wind down a failing startup. How to close up shop on a failing startup. Is your startup failing?

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce that we have added Greg Bettinelli as a partner at GRP Partners. He had joined a young startup in LA called HauteLook and was interested in getting to know the local tech community. This is exactly the brand that GRP Partners wants to embody. The guy has knowledge.

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Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Hunter Walk: Before we dive into your company Greenhouse , give me one story from your childhood that foretold you were going to end up a startup founder. We ended up partnering with two different funds at TPG; the TPG Growth Fund and the RISE Fund. TPG is a great partner; they do what they say, they’ve really been trustworthy.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. Adding free users or customers to increase valuation makes sense for a venture-backed startup looking to go public, but will kill bootstrapping.

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YoungUpstarts

JUNE 15, 2015

He may have been named by Silicon Valley thought leader Paul Graham as one of the five most interesting startup founders since 1979, but Sam’s curious penchant for wearing t-shirts over long-sleeve shirts suggests that he’s definitely too young for me. What I fell in love with was Sam’s How To Start A Startup class at Stanford.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

If you’re a startup and you don’t have a close relationship with a few law firms you’re really missing one of the most important relationships that any entrepreneur can have. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. Every town has firms that focus on startups – find them.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2023

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

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The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Thomas Clayton has started and run numerous high-tech startups in Silicon Valley. He is currently CEO of Bubbly , a social media startup backed by Sequoia Capital, SingTel Innov8, and JAFCO. The company is one of the largest VC–backed startups in Southeast Asia, having raised over $60M in funding. Sequoia , Accel , NEA , etc.).

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

And normally the rest of the team are young & inexperienced because that’s all the startup could afford to bring on. The “team beneath the team&# was as talented as any top team that pitches me startups. I fell in love with the team immediately as did my partners. My partners spent one-on-one time with them.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. The more they know your strategic objectives the more laterally they can act on your behalf in key situations. What Rob wrote in his post is right. Have topics.

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ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

How to Scale Unicorns With Partner David Zhang, TVC. Joining us for this episode is our partner David Zhang, Partner at TCV (( Technology Crossover Ventures ). I’m a partner at TCV, which we founded in 1996. I founded a startup years ago, and that’s how I started getting a taste of it. David Zhang.

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The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 14, 2014

———————————– If you ask most VCs what they look for in a startup they will say great team, great product and great market. Early stage investors like Forward Partners look for a minimum of a great entrepreneur and a great idea.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. I have seen bad behavior from later-stage VCs, believe me.

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View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

There’s been a lot of digital ink spilled around the various types of capital available to startups today. As a startup grows, venture debt becomes a viable option to continue that growth. Glen is an active contributor to the local tech ecosystem and well-versed in how and when startups can use venture debt to their advantage.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. ——-.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. Adding free users or customers to increase valuation makes sense for a venture-backed startup looking to go public, but will kill bootstrapping.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

” It’s a standard line I use at our partners meetings. For all the things he’s likely known for, he probably hasn’t yet built a strong relationship as an early stage venture investor (he invests often in later-stage deals where he is very respected). Startup Advice' ” It wasn’t.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2021

After working many years in business, both in large companies as well as startups, I’ve realized that you can learn more from peers and mentors than from any formal education program. Our educational systems today do very little to help you keep up with new generations of customers, employees, and partners.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 29, 2020

In my role as an angel investor to startups, I’m struck by the broad variety of advisor strategies I see in investor presentations and business plans that cross my desk. If your startup team is highly technical, an advisory board member with a strong financial and business background clearly adds value.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. That’s money that fuels our startup ecosystems. …But LPs Have Been Putting Out More Money Than They Are Getting Back.

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YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 19, 2017

by Marek Danyluk, managing partner at Space Executive. There is a thin line between success and failure for startups, and that is usually determined by capital. The more capital a startup has, the easier it is to get off the ground and ramp up growth. Take China-based AI startup SenseTime, for example.

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The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 19, 2015

In the words of an alum from the 2006 cohort: Companies are joining YC at a much later stage. Today, there are six YC companies worth over a billion dollars, and as a result new startups aim much higher. That marks a shift in the YC investment strategy which used to focus on younger businesses.

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David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

PEVCTech is partnering with Blue Future Partners to run the first large-scale survey of VCs’ technology stack. Johann Kratzer of Blue Future Partners , a fund of funds, observed, “The majority of the hundreds of funds we’ve diligenced rely predominantly on their relationships to source deals. Greylock Partners.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2014

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

Shots on Goal Being great as a startup technology investor of course requires a lot of things to come together: You need to have strong insights into where technology markets are heading and where value in the future will be created and sustained You need be perfect with your market timing. On Funding?—?Shots We do other things, too.

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Austin Startup

MAY 11, 2017

645 Ventures: A New Era of Venture Capital Investing Arena Growth Partners We help great leaders build great businesses. Our unique approach to investing, coupled with a pioneering spirit, provides the vision to guide early stage growth companies beyond today and toward future success. That drives every decision we make.

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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.

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Austin Startup

JUNE 27, 2017

For investors outside of Austin and LPs: Austin is a a vibrant startup market and this list of capital sources can help you identify firms to co-invest with and funds to invest in. We’ve compiled a definitive list of sources of startup capital in Austin. IS THERE ROOM FOR MORE LOCAL CAPITAL IN AUSTIN?

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The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Today, in steps 10-12 I want to discuss with you raising your first round of money, hiring to develop and maintain your company culture, as well as defining your role in the management of your startup. Both ways are great, I’ve tried both, but personally I wouldn’t try to start something again without partners.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2016

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

And funds also have investments from the partners of the firm. For example, my firm, GRP Partners, has a $200 million fund that was closed in March 2009 and we have 4 investment partners. A fund size of $100 million – $200 million is likely to either be an A round investor or “stage agnostic&#.

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View from Seed

MAY 18, 2016

Many folks have discussed the role and value a board of directors can bring to a startup, even very early in the company’s lifecycle. As time progresses and startups grow, the board room tends to increase in size for a variety of reasons. Good investor board members are typically both necessary and helpful to startup companies.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2018

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

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Incubator Silicon Valley North America Small Business Administration 218

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I was excited to see that GLG (formerly Gerson Lehrman Group), the industry leader, is now offering a professional network service geared to the needs of the startup community: GLG Share. Like many established finance & media companies, GLG knows that the tech startup sector is a growing part of the economy.

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View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

And seed VCs, especially as new firms were being established, were eager to encourage their portfolio startups to plant that flag in the ground publicly. It seemed like every other TechCrunch post was announcing a startups’s new seed financing round. It’s time to wake up and declare your seed stage startup to the world.

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