Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2011

I was recently approached by Fast Company to comment on “crisis management&# at startups in the wake of the Airbnb “ranksackgate&# story. The obvious starting points to think to yourself are: Has something happened that fundamentally affects my customers or partners? What are the teachable moments?

PR 329

PR Management Startup Vietnam 329

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. This is exactly the brand that GRP Partners wants to embody. It was perfect timing since in 2012 GRP raised its fourth fund bringing our total assets managed to nearly $1 billion. The guy has knowledge.

Partner 360

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles San Francisco 360

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. 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. Sincerely – he is better at managing his board than any exec I have worked with.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

I am thrilled to announce that we have added Hamet Watt as a Partner at Upfront Ventures. But as sweet as that success has been (we invested pre-revenue in a small team) today my even more important news was the further expansion of our partner ranks. We have been on a drive to add more operational partners. What does that mean?

Partner 340

Partner Los Angeles South Africa Cap Table 340

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

My other partner, Steven Dietz, was on the board of my second company. I started working with David when I was an entrepreneur and he was an associate with a VC firmed called … wait for it … GRP Partners (now Upfront Ventures)! But he has the added benefit of living in the UK – making him the perfect partner for Nick.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

Most firms have “associates” and “partners” and some have an additional role called a “principal.” Usually there roles are a combination of: Deal sourcing for partners. Deal support / analysis / quant / legal for deals a partner is seriously considering. Deal screening. Industry reviews.

Jordan 365

Jordan Technical Review Portfolio Partner 365

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The main thing you’re concerned about in this phase of your company is maintaing control of your board, which in a legalistic perspective is ensuring that founders & management have the majority of seats on the board. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions. how to evolve our management team.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2013

On my first real day back the first thought I have is that most entrepreneurs don’t manage their VC relationships as well as they could. My observation is that many entrepreneurs have a strong relationship with the partner at the VC who invested in his or her company. Is your partner senior or junior?

Management 309

Management Venture Capital Partner Boston 309

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2013

I recently wrote a post about how to manage relationships when you’re at a startup or are busy executive. So I had to learn how to best interact with him to be a supportive partner yet get what I wanted / needed, too. office manager, finance manager and/or assistant if he has one. Help encourage him not to.

Partner 418

Partner Startup Spain Email 418

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2012

I always tell teams I meet with, “The scarcest resource in your company is management bandwidth. And nobody is more important in this regard than senior management. How will today’s “toe in the water” initiatives distract you or take your management’s time or attention off of your core business?

Bandwidth 415

Bandwidth Management Startup Channel 415

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

I had realized that I didn’t have it within me to be as good of a player as many of them did but I had the skills to help as mentor, coach, friend, sparing partner and patient capital provider. Deep down I love working with founders and products, strategy, go-to-market, financial management, pricing and all aspects of building a startup.

Valuation 466

Valuation San Francisco Ratchet Liquidation Preference 466

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had really positive experiences such as working with Greg Gretsch at Sigma Partners where he championed us to a partners’ meeting where we sort of got crucified. We made changes and Greg was a gentleman throughout the process rather than berating us for our performance (it was our first partners’ meeting).

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

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). ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video. Let me not bury the lede. When he left I called him immediately.

Southern California 359

Southern California San Francisco CTO Hire SEM 359

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

By September 18th we were ready to bring them to a full partner meeting and as a group we were bought into the vision and the experience of this exact team to pull things off. We funded about $2 million, which allowed a full team in Finland to be recruited for building the app and an international management team led from Los Angeles.

Technical Review 373

Technical Review North America Los Angeles Cofounder 373

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

Not just the $20 million round at Invoca, the $70 million I helped us raise at Maker Studios , but I was intimately involved with the earliest funding round at DataSift and every subsequent round which has recently announced $42 million led by Insight Venture Partners and $70 million in total.

Los Angeles 387

Los Angeles Intellectual Property LP Venture Capital 387

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

It’s the one thing I miss having switched from player to manager – I love the joy of winning and of competing. I had lost a previous deal where the team said they liked me but didn’t know my partners well enough so I promised myself never to let that happen again. It’s what makes you stand out from the rest.

China 333

China Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

It’s the one thing I miss having switched from player to manager – I love the joy of winning and of competing. I had lost a previous deal where the team said they liked me but didn’t know my partners well enough so I promised myself never to let that happen again. It’s what makes you stand out from the rest.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review 328

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

In a way it seems the model has been bring in professional management to help a company through a growth spurt while technical founders focus on becoming an industry leader in terms of innovation and then when the less experienced technical founder is ready they step back in the role. I like technical founders so this wasn’t an issue.

Founder 309

Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2012

You’re heading into a full partner meeting and you’ve been asked for a full data pack before – should you give it? If you show a list of key customers or key business partners and if this list is sensitive (READ: If you don’t want VCs calling them) then you need to make it explicit with the VCs. Follow Up Engagement.

Technical Review 316

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Cap Table 316

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We help founders through difficult moments, we help coach, we act as sparring partners, we help them resolve conflicts when they’re fighting with co-founders and we help them deal with adversity as well as successes. We might help a management team deal with a vexing strategic question or a thorny negotiation but these are mostly tactical.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

Often if it’s a bigger firm (say 4 partners or more) and it’s a super small investment for their fund size (let’s say $250-500k when they normally invest $5-7 million) they will just require 1 or 2 partners to decide. What happens next feels like a black box to outsiders. ” Some firms are collegiate.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Detroit Early Stage Partner 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2016

They’re corrosive in your relationship with the early VCs, the management teams will take them if they must but they end up feeling demotivated and in a venture world where great new deals are always coming around — why commit to somebody else’s problem child?

Pre-Money Valuation 292

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Early Stage Startup 292

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

And many of these people are money managers rather than people like Gus who inspire entrepreneurs. At just 24 years old I was given the responsibility of managing teams. One of the terms we coined there was a “seagull.&# We used it to describe certain of our partners (e.g. Yet Gus is in the minority in my opinion.

Pakistan 297

Pakistan India Technical Review Software Review 297

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

just having a sparring partner with a vested interest in your success can be useful. The Limited Partners (LPs) who back funds don’t expect their dollars to be passive. But gone are the days where VCs put dollars into companies and ask founders to step aside quickly so that the VC can install their favorite management team.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

And rather than a small group of our partners and associates all thinking it’s a good idea we don’t mind if there is strong internal debate and at Upfront there often is. ” So other partners at the firm might sling mud at your ideas as you go for approval on an investment. .” 6SensorLabs.

Technical Review 362

Technical Review America Partner United States 362

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. My job doesn’t involve the daily grind of customer complaints, product outages, business partner / channel problems, hiring / firing, etc.

Technical Review 312

Technical Review Due Diligence Spain Warrant 312

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2010

GRP Partners is looking to hire two analysts (maybe even three) to join our practice in Los Angeles. Well, aside from it showing discipline and intelligence – we always get flooded with emails when we recruit and when you have to manage volume you need to go for obvious filters. We manage nearly $1 billion. Yesterday.

Los Angeles 290

Los Angeles Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 290

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5 billion under management.&# I don’t really understand why VCs do this since it’s mostly a meaningless number. What is total assets under management? - So VCs often raise money every 3-5 years if they can.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Early Stage Software Review 269

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

In practice it can be a fine line between sparring partner / coach and stepping over the line to brute-force persuasion. Here is where I see this really play out: Product Management. Allocation planning in product management in ingenious and helps a lot with CEO meddling. Senior management feels undermined. I did this.

Startup 150

Startup CTO Hire Sales Leadership 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

In an early stage start I believe it’s the CEO’s job to manage these functions. It’s pretty tough to convince me in a company of less than 50 people that the CEO can’t handle 6-8 direct reports to manage the various areas of the business. So what does a COO at a startup do if the CEO should be managing things?

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Due Diligence 325

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

The other investors around the table didn’t agree nor did the “independent” board members who were willing to turn a blind eye to capital inefficiency since they didn’t have any economic interests that would be diluted by continued fund raising to support a capitally inefficient management team. The deal was done in late 2007.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

We write that into the calendar entry so that I (and any my partners) know this and would only reschedule if extremely urgent. If done in advance it’s manageable. I’m not talking about two people from the same company (like co-founders) or two partners at a VC firm. The day before - This starts to get problematic.

Las Vegas 369

Las Vegas Warrant Technical Review Cofounder 369

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2013

The most likely outcome if you manage to interest the senior exec (for the sake of this post let me call her the CEO) is that she will refer you down the organization to somebody who would be involved in the decision. ” “There’s no way we’re going to partner in this area. It’s too strategic.

Sales Cycle 375

Sales Cycle Sales Technical Review Campaign 375

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

If you are going to do the tour up and down Sandhill Road to try and raise your 1st round of financing you need a pitch deck because the vast majority of those meetings you are going to be sitting around a table and you will be presenting to one or more partners and that is going to be your first engagement.”. Is that when it became big?

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

They did not take salaries during the first two years and invested more money in the firm than they received from management fees. SecondRound.com – This is a proprietary CRM system that was built to help manage the fundraising process. Office Hours – Two or three partners post a sign-up sheet to meet with entrepreneurs.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

But the founders also recognized – as many great founders do – that they were going to have to build out an experienced management team to become the billion company everybody believes this can be. Babe Ruth vs. Lance Armstrong. The first move was to bring in digital media veteran Courtney Holt as COO.

Video 320

Video Los Angeles Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 320

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

I think as a tech industry we have bred a culture that places more emphasis on product excellence than managing human behavior. Of course it makes no sense to have great people management and a crappy product. She started it with a partner, 50-50. They were close friends, lived down the road and members of our synagogue.

Founder 340

Founder Sacramento Cofounder Technical Review 340