If you don’t have scale as a goal then you shouldn’t be raising money from angel or venture investors, you should be getting a commercial or government small business loan.). •   Search. Who are the partners? These sources are a lot more forgiving of iterations and pivots than later-stage venture-capital funds. MORE >>

It is the human capital involved, both internally with company teams and externally with advisors, boards and investors, that is going to differentiate which startups survive and become the disruptive businesses of tomorrow. Brad Feld wrote a fantastic post today entitled Too Many Seed Investment Choices. This takes a lot of time. MORE >>

A reader asked me to blog about the "Venture Partner" role in VC firms. Venture Partner is a person who a VC firm brings on board to help them do investments and manage them, but is not a full and permanent member of the partnership. My partner Albert Wenger is an example of the latter. MORE >>

Venture Capitalists who are serious about turning their firms into more than one-fund wonders may want to have their associates actually start and run a company for a year.  Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. have a partner-track associates program. MORE >>

But one of my favorite stories about entrepreneurs comes from Dan Valentine , the founder of Sequoia , which is one of the best venture capital firms in the business. When one of the younger partners in the firm started, Don took him aside and drew a four square quadrant. Venture Capital and Technology MORE >>