Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

Named Competitors – Often buyer exclusivity agreements start very broad and your job is to narrow them. I usually try to win the “named competitor” argument because in actuality most buyers usually only really care about a handful of competitors that they’re trying to one-up.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

Finally, I HATE the name. Golden rule of branding for me: 1) name your company or product your URL and 2) don’t paint yourself into a corner. &# Tweet&# = corner. My bet: within 18 months they will change the name and go multi-stream. Sounds like somebody didn’t do their homework on this name. uh, hello!

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

One would think entrepreneurs would never want less available cash – until such time as their competitors ridiculously and unnecessarily all raise $50 million in the name of a “land grab” thus making it much harder for your totally reasonable company to attract investors.

Software Review 150

Software Review Turkey Portfolio Syndicate 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

I then had to review a nefarious IP lawsuit filed against another company and help the CEO figure out whether we should just pay it or join forces with the other companies named and fight it. After my board meeting I had to do an interview with a CFO candidate that one of my portfolio companies asked me to speak with.

Software Review 381

Software Review Churn Rate Due Diligence Option Pool 381

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

It’s a tough dance but I would suggest the following: In most cases don’t name an actual price Your job is to “anchor” by giving the VC a general range without saying it. Why shouldn’t most founders just name a price? this is seeking feedback / testing your reponse) Here you’ve set a bunch of signals without naming your price.

Valuation 324

Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 5, 2010

It also attracted some big names from the Bay Area. I’m a huge supporter of his initiative to help end this practice. The first event was a big success and brought out many of LA’s angel elite. Also enjoyed sharing notes with Joshua Schachter who sat next to me.

San Francisco 254

San Francisco Technical Review Los Angeles Software Review 254

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

are, as the name implies, the people who have “ learned a trade and work for another person usually by the day.&# Superstars - These, as the name implies, are the rare breed of individuals who have the innate ability to sell and are very structured and process oriented. More on that later. Journeymen - Journeymen (Journeywomen!)

Early Stage 350

Early Stage Startup Sales Campaign 350

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2011

Every night you are just hanging out with big name bands and the teams around them that brought them to their peak.&#. Update: Yes, a lot of name dropping in this post. It was more to try and give the reader / non-SXSW attendee a flavor of the atmosphere in Austin than to try and name drop. OK, well maybe 80/20.

Technical Cofounder 294

Technical Cofounder Austin Hosting Cofounder 294

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2013

So I started noticing hot sauces more and the more I looked the more I noticed this funny rooster bottle with a strange sounding name I couldn’t pronounce and that familiar green cap. The company name sounded Chinese – Huy Fong Foods. He can’t trademark it since it’s the name of a city. Where was it from?

Vietnam 415

Vietnam Los Angeles Entrepreneur Thailand 415

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I really like the clarity of two business units – whatever you name them. The name Qwikster : 1 out of 5 stars. I was asked by a journalist at the NYT if I thought it was a clever name since it was perhaps intentionally retro. Netflix needs to segment their customers and charge each what is appropriate.

Customer 287

Customer Technical Review PR Caching 287

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

They chose the name First Round Capital because they thought capital would be deployed most efficiently at smaller seed stage rounds considering the cost to build an internet business had come down drastically. CEO Summit – Two people are invited from each company to attend an event with big name speaking guests.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

After they see a name they trust, everybody wants to invest” It’s called “ social proof ” and it’s a good thing for entrepreneurs. But we’ve gotten the point where ENIFA and they will invest with no information based solely on the name of who else has invested. million from more than 30 investors.

Cap Table 150

Cap Table Silicon Valley Cofounder Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2013

Haircuts, nails, massages, trainers, chiropractors, dentists – you name it. Of course you now book when you want and even choose your restaurant based on availability at the time / day you want and you can book on your mobile phone at 2am or 8pm. Yet for everything else we’re still in the dark ages and people have accepted that.

Development Team Review 324

Development Team Review Los Angeles San Francisco Mobile 324

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2014

He just had his Mitt Romney moment and his name will forever be etched in the collective consciousness of the tech community for this terribly insensitive and tone deaf letter to the Wall Street Journal. The venture capital firm that bears his name. “Maybe it’s time for KP to shorten its name to K? Kleiner Perkins.

San Francisco 417

San Francisco Silicon Valley Germany Sacramento 417

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2013

You can then add the persons name to the top and I often add a little personal message to each email at the top and/or change any pertinent emails. Trust me – I’ve tried both for years. The best way to do this is to set up the bulk of your email message as a general message. You then create multiple versions of it.

Email 415

Email Software Review Hosting Demand 415

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

I told the CEO, “I have the luxury of not knowing the name of the VC you’re talking to so I won’t sound biased. We know VC Seagulls when we see them but we’re attracted to work with them because they have a brand name. I guarantee this is a bad VC. In our core we easily spot people’s inner character.

Pakistan 297

Pakistan India Technical Review Software Review 297

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

In just over a decade, new firms like USV, Foundry, Spark, True Ventures, First Round, Greycroft (I might add Upfront) have made names for themselves from a non-traditional Silicon Valley stance. There are so many I fear that listing a few will get me in trouble with the many I didn’t list.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital LP Silicon Valley Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

Brad wrote up his answer here – you should read it because it’s very instructive for how I believe communities ought to think about naming conventions. Still, I kind like the name, well, um, … Santa Monica. So many had names of partners (Kleiner Perkins) or local favorite identifiers like trees (Sequoia).

Community 304

Community Los Angeles Startup Silicon Valley 304

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

It became a huge kerfuffle with many VC partners writing to thank me for the post, which exposed those that gave their industry a bad name. And then I was mortified – Valleywag figured out which firm had treated me the worst and published their names. The managing partner of the firm called me the next day.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

In her well-regarded (but boringly named) book “ Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages ” Carlota Perez outlines the history of many of our great leaps forward in innovation. And LA is the largest retail & trade employment metropolitan zone in the country.

Los Angeles 376

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Seattle 376

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2019

I generally prefer not to have assigned seating with names pre-assigned. If you have 10 people at a dinner and 5 are non-management board members you could easily put a name tag on each plate of your company saying your company name so for me I would put, “Upfront Person” on name tags the table and space them out every other seat.

Networking 262

Networking Conversion Naming Hosting 262

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 21, 2011

Fred Wilson wrote a blog post yesterday called “Real Names” in which he talked about a commenter on his blog who preferred not to comment because he didn’t want to use his real name. If you want to have a public debate then at least have the decency to do it using your real name! It’s a powerful concept.

Social Network 329

Social Network Iran Naming Networking 329

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

It was a “disappearing text app” where the founders told me that they named the company because the idea came from how Tiger Woods got caught cheating on his wife because all of his mistresses had evidence that he cheated because they saved text messages from him. I didn’t do that.

IPO 214

IPO Los Angeles Technical Review Silicon Valley 214

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2013

You can’t just name your own price.” Tell them I’ll stay if they’ll give it to me for 120 Euros. “What? You want … what?” ” “Mark. You can’t do that! ” Me. “Of course I can. Tell them you found a hotel down the street for 100 Euros but I prefer to stay at their hotel.

Sacramento 416

Sacramento Baltimore Germany DC 416

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

I had written about Mike before but hadn’t disclosed his name. And anybody who read Danny’s transition letter to the company would note that he gave one shout out to Mike D ( Michael DiSanto ), who is now moving to the Bay Area to help run the tech practice for Bingham. “Without you none of this would be possible.

Video 320

Video Los Angeles Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 320

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

Eventually I had a head of Product Management – the best I ever worked with named Tim Barker – politely say to me that this wouldn’t fly any more. At times I wanted the engineering team to produce features to support our sales efforts to I occasionally leaned on them a bit. Tim had a great solution.

Startup 150

Startup CTO Hire Sales Leadership 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

name your city]? You enter your credit card information and driver’s license once and then it’s $1 to start in and currently 15 cents per minute. I get why it works in Santa Monica, but will it really work in …. Yeah, I know your first thought. That’s what we all thought about Uber, too.

San Francisco 256

San Francisco Valuation Technical Review Los Angeles 256

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

What I found in meeting @John is a quiet, thoughtful, introverted, charming guy who doesn’t enjoy the public taunting that he occasionally receives for having a company backed by such high profile names.

Social Media 150

Social Media Media Technical Review Viral 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

consumer companies were enhanced because they coincided with hardware that allowed us to capture more content instantly – namely images and video. It added a new dimension to online social networks … business networking. Suddenly we were all creating blogs on Blogger.com, Typepad & WordPress.

Social Network 297

Social Network Networking Internet EC2 297

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

If you attract names like these you’re bound to attract some media attention and then Chad Hurley dropped the bomb that he was leaving YouTube while he was at the f.ounders event. I had no idea who Paddy was but I kept hearing his name from different people so I’m guessing he was politely persistent at scale.

Ireland 392

Ireland Global Las Vegas Switzerland 392

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2013

I became aware of Sam several years ago as I started noticing his name repeated in the comments section of my blog. When I sit down to write every week I never really imagine what is going to end up resonating the most with people but it seems I’ve most often been defined by my post that I Invest in Lines, not Dots.

San Francisco 372

San Francisco Jordan Angel Investor Partner 372

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Some examples: A large company has told you that you need to change your brand name or they’ll sue you for trademark infringement (this is a real world, recent example). They are issues, though, that your VC would certainly find out during due diligence or at a minimum you’d be ethically obliged to tell them.

Technical Review 311

Technical Review Venture Capital Due Diligence Partner 311

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 6, 2013

In this case somebody named Todd Adamson. And by helping save my Thanksgiving this year. He has paid me in spades. Congratulations, Aaron. And thank you. Final Notes. The photo in this blog (like many of mine) came from 500px. I paid $2.99 for the rights to use it for non-commerical purposes.

San Diego 344

San Diego Technical Review Seed Capital Software Review 344

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

They can’t name the key decision makers at their prospect, they can’t tell me who they’re competing against, etc. They’re not allocating their time properly across all of the business functions, they’re favoring those that they like best. They don’t know the details of the deals.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Due Diligence 325

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

It’s something you must earn over time by living up to the name you define. If you choose your name well and it represents what your customers value in you then it will be memorable, differentiated and meaningful. We felt nothing embodied these attributes more than the name Upfront Ventures.

Ireland 324

Ireland Jordan Portfolio Flash 324

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

His early experience was at LogMeIn and then he went on to help Xobni, DropBox, LookOut and EventBrite to name a few companies I’m sure you’ve heard of.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

I recently read this anecdote in the press (withholding company name because I actually really love the concept). Great product ideas (and even potentially great companies) are being thrust at us in an attempt to go more quickly.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Lean Bulgaria 374