Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 5, 2014

When I was in business school in the 1980s, we talked a lot about the productivity paradox. The premise was that computers and automation would drastically improve productivity, making labor less important as tasks were automated, resulting in lower cost of labor.

Valuation 144

Valuation Venture Capital Flash Government 144

Feld Thoughts

MAY 13, 2013

The Deming Center also partners closely with Silicon Flatirons and other CU organizations to put on events such as the New Venture Challenge, Productive Collisions, and annually hosts the regional Venture Capital Investment Competition for MBA students.

Hiring 128

Hiring Venture Capital Hosting Community 128

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 26, 2019

They, their children, and their grandchildren have all worked hard their entire lives to be productive and contributing members of American society. My grandparents fleeing a shtetl didn’t have vast sums of money lying around to spend on lawyers and fees, but were welcomed into this country. I’m not shy about my opinions on immigration.

America 109

America Russia United States Green 109

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 24, 2016

NetGenesis had raised some money and had created three different products – net.Forms (a web form manager), net.Thread (a web threaded discussion board), and net.Analysis (a weblog analysis tool). A year earlier, none of this had existed – now we realized we needed to focus on one product. Jerry had just invested in eShare.

Non-Compete 70

Non-Compete LP Venture Capital Affiliate 70

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 4, 2012

By 1997, when I started investing as a venture capital investor, I was no longer reading business plans. Rather than write long exhaustive documents, entrepreneurs can rapidly prototype their product and get immediate user and market feedback. In the 1990s, business plan competitions were all the rage. Related articles.

Business Plan 193

Business Plan Lean Cofounder Venture Capital 193

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 9, 2012

You may recognize Mahendra’s name – he wrote The Business of Venture Capital which I reviewed recently. This book is part of my continuous effort to dramatically improve startup company boards.

Startup 121

Startup Venture Capital Naming Email 121

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 10, 2017

Knowing Eric and the team, this idealistic passion will not only scale as a company grows, it will set the trajectory for building a product and a company that changes how we experience the world. Back in 1997, Softbank Technology Ventures (which became Mobius Venture Capital) was the first VC fund I helped raise.

Afghanistan 82

Afghanistan Bootstrapping Venture Capital Channel 82

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 12, 2014

Talking heads discuss the ins and outs of everything from product development to investment theory. It’s a truism in venture capital that startups fail most often not because their product explodes, but because their team implodes. Bloggers and Quora have picked up the slack for the situations those case studies miss.

Stock 130

Stock Venture Capital Lean Product Development 130

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 18, 2014

My partner Jason Mendelson and I even churned out a series on venture capital financing. This was during a time when venture funding was in the dumps, and the process was opaque. In about 30 posts, we demystified it. Finally, after almost 20 years of writing, the light bulb went on for me.

Cofounder 182

Cofounder Angel Investor Venture Capital Finance 182

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 28, 2016

The first, on crowdfunding, covers both product and equity crowdfunding, and has an analysis on the good, bad, and scary around crowdfunding. We added a section on Corporate Venture Capital, as there has been a Cambrian explosion of CVCs over the past few years, even though the concept of a CVC is not a new one.

Term Sheet 70

Term Sheet Cofounder Venture Capital Equity 70

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

At the time, it was impossible to anticipate how the web would evolve, as 2004 was a particularly low point in the evolution of venture capital and tech companies. A year and a half ago NewsGator acquired Sitrion to expand from their historical Microsoft SharePoint ecosystem product footprint to include SAP via Sitrion’s products.

Mobile 70

Mobile RSS Venture Capital Web 70

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 23, 2012

And, if you look at some of the successful companies we have had from our previous investing at Mobius Venture Capital, you’d see market leaders like Postini, Return Path, FeedBurner, Rally, Stratify, NewsGator, and Sling Media. ” Step back and redefine the market segment you are going after.

Venture Capital 138

Venture Capital Portfolio Distribution Channel 138

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

Fitbit launched two new products yesterday ( Fitbit Zip and Fitbit One ), Return Path launches three today (Email Intelligence!), Foundry Group adds $225M to its venture capital pool. We just closed Foundry Group 2012 – a new $225 million fund. We’ll start investing out of it before the end of the year. Or chocolate.

Oklahoma City 124

Oklahoma City Detroit San Francisco Vermont 124

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 10, 2010

Since we invested about six weeks ago, over 300 companies have signed up to try BigDoor’s system and I expect 10 will be in full production by the end of the month. It was a tight, focused two hours. If you are looking to add game mechanics to your site, it’s the easiest and fastest way to do it.

Seattle 97

Seattle API Cofounder Venture Capital 97

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 30, 2022

For context, the general way it works is founders auth with LinkedIn and then the product tosses away their identity (or, more accurately, only keeps a hash and disconnects it from their ratings). You are literally the only one (and I’m relieved someone did) to ask on sampling bias.

Metrics 160

Metrics Founder Entrepreneur Product 160

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 21, 2016

This is, in effect, a simple form of load balancing that we are all technically aware of from our early investments in some companies that generated, or used, very visible load balancing products before some of these technologies started to become absorbed into the core Internet infrastructure (anyone remember early DNS round robin approaches?).

Partner 70

Partner Fort Worth Technical Review Portfolio 70

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 22, 2010

In between events, Mark gave a talk titled “How Does Venture Capital Work”, Sameer gave a talk titled “Business Plan 101”, and I gave a talk titled “Do You Have The Balls To Start A Company?”. Xavi Ramirez ‘07 and a coworker are starting a company part time and are still defining their first product.

Massachusetts 99

Massachusetts Aggregator Boston Venture Capital 99

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. I’m an investor in Danielle’s company Mattermark and was parters with Heidi at Mobius Venture Capital.

United States 70

United States Cofounder Angel Investor Government 70

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 2, 2010

Dave McClure: MoneyBall for Startups: Invest BEFORE Product/Market Fit, Double-Down AFTER. But before Foundry Group, my partners and I were involved in many seed investments, both at Mobius Venture Capital. They are: Fred Wilson: Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur.

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Cofounder Syndicate Syndication 152

Feld Thoughts

JULY 7, 2010

As a counterpoint, a law professor claims that “ startup executives reported that nearly 70% of venture capital firms and 50% of angel investors said that patents were important to their investment decisions.” This study was, of course, repudiated by the most credible person on it, Professor Pamela Samuelson. currently.

Software 132

Software IP South America Investment Bankers 132

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 31, 2017

Do we have an affinity for the product? We don’t have to be daily users of the product, but we have to care about it in some way. Our goal with this filter is to say no to almost everything within 60 seconds. Assuming something passes through this filter, we then focus on three things. Passion is easy to fake.

Differentiation 86

Differentiation Early Stage Founder Product 86

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 5, 2018

The idea of product/market fit has been around for a long time. Recently, Beezer Clarkson at Saphirre Ventures wrote a post titled Raising A Fund? And, while founder/market fit is a newer concept, it turns out to be just as important. 9 Questions That Help Get You To GP/LP Fit.

LP 87

LP Portfolio Management Founder 87

Feld Thoughts

JULY 5, 2015

His goal was to use “acquihire” as a substitute for acquisition, while emphasizing the relative importance of the product/technology or people in decision to make an acquisition. The four that are most relevant in my mind are product, technology, customers, and people.

Acquisition 70

Acquisition Cap Table Framework Retention 70

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 6, 2012

When I look at what drives my decision to invest, it’s the entrepreneurs and the product. When I look at what drives my decision to pass, it’s the entrepreneurs and the product and occasionally the existing investors if I simply don’t want to work with them.

Syndicate 136

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Angel Investor 136

Feld Thoughts

JULY 14, 2015

The company spends the $1m building and launching their first product. The product gets a lot better. In this case, we misread the respect – or lack thereof – that a co-investor and an entrepreneur would have for the other seed investors and the seed capital that helped them get a product built and into customer hands.

Recapitalization 70

Recapitalization Pre-Money Valuation Post-Money Valuation Angel Investor 70

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 23, 2016

If there are heroes in the startup ecosystem, they are the entrepreneurs who take the biggest risks and create the products, services, and companies that we increasingly rely on as tech seeps into everything. I’ve gone out of business for not doing it well. What Fred said. VCs – go read his post and reflect on it.

Minneapolis 70

Minneapolis Entrepreneur Community Partner 70

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 6, 2012

The VC isn’t fascinated with your product. She explores the entrepreneur – VC relationship and suggests four warning signs for an entrepreneur when interacting with a VC. He (or she)’s just not that into you. You can’t be completely honest. The VC doesn’t treat you like an equal.

Entrepreneur 136

Entrepreneur Operations Product Venture Capital 136

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

She works incredibly hard for the companies she invests in, is deeply passionate about the products and the entrepreneurs, and clearly loves what she does. Joanne has done about 25 investments in the past few years and has a very clear strategy for what she invests in. I told her about my approach of saying no in less than 60 seconds.

Seed Stage 133

Seed Stage Angel Investor Conversion Entrepreneur 133

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Pragmatic cost cuts are always possible and often productive.” One of my favorite lines in buried in the middle: “I’ve heard enough companies say “we simply can’t cut costs or it will hurt the long-term potential of the business” to get a wry smile. We entrepreneurs have been spinning that line for decades in every boom cycle.

Cap Table 70

Cap Table Down Round Liquidation Preference Founder 70

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Each of them stumbled for different reasons, but a lack of obsessive focus on product and customer was a big part of why they vaporized. They assumed, regardless of how much capital they had, that they could raise more. Two years later, the public company (which at one point was worth over $30b) was bankrupt.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

Feld Thoughts

JULY 23, 2015

In addition to getting paid $10 / hour (which quickly taught me that if I worked more hours, I got paid more money) I received a 5% royalty on gross sales of the two products I wrote (PC Log and PC Economics). In 1983 the oil business was booming and Petcom was growing quickly.

Saudi Arabia 70

Saudi Arabia Dallas Coder Denmark 70