Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage IPO 328

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JUNE 29, 2014

It’s not hard to find people willing to write the narrative that “venture capital is not an asset class” or “venture capital has performed terribly.” Having worked through the data with Glenn I am even more optimistic about venture capital than I was even a year ago.

Venture Capital 362

Venture Capital IPO LP Jordan 362

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SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

On the phone … Me: So, you raised venture capital? Startup Lessons' We raised a seed round. About $1 million. Me: At what price? Him: It wasn’t priced. We raised a convertible note. Me: With a cap? Him: Yes, $8 million. So you did raise with a price. It’s just a maximum price. I hope these notes helped a bit.

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

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DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened?

Valuation 466

Valuation San Francisco Ratchet Liquidation Preference 466

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JULY 26, 2016

Many first-time founders seek advice when thinking about what ideas would be great for a startup company and receive the wrong advice that you need to focus on a billion-dollar idea. I advise founders to focus on what I call “basecamp,” which is the first level of success or validation at a startup. So what should you do?

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital San Francisco Startup Limited Partner 150

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MAY 21, 2019

Managing Your Startup Board?—?A A Short Presentation I was invited to do a keynote presentation at the Khosla Ventures CEO Summit this week in Sausalito. My talk was about “ managing your startup board ” and the full deck is on that SlideShare link and embedded below. link] Managing Your Startup Board?—?A

Management 234

Management Startup Dividend Early Stage 234

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FEBRUARY 6, 2017

It was only a year ago that many in the Venture Capital industry were predicting that “winter was coming” and to be fair the author of this post was chief amongst them. This past year was also the year that startup boards also got more disciplined about containing burn rates and pushing for companies to be run more pragmatically.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Saudi Arabia Kuwait Burn Rate 150

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DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. One of them is profitability.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

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SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. ” I highly recommend reading it. Valuation.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. million, our Seed Funds mostly between $200–300 million and have delivered median ownerships of ~20% from the first check we write into a startup.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

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SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. It came from an amazing small startup in McKinney, Texas (30 miles North of Dallas) called NewToy , which they acquired.

Community 378

Community San Diego Silicon Valley Los Angeles 378

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OCTOBER 26, 2020

Venture capital is about backing the leaders of tomorrow who imagine the world as it should be and aren’t constrained by what it is today. As an industry we’re not always as good as we could be about our own “creative destruction” to create the tomorrow of venture capital. So What Does All This Mean?

Partner 361

Partner Management Cofounder San Francisco 361

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MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. I have been close to the tech & startup sectors for more than 20 years and I can’t think of a period in which I felt more optimistic about the innovation and value creation I see in front of us.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

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JULY 13, 2013

One of my favorite events last year was attending Startup Grind where I got to interview Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. And of course we talked about many of my views of building startups. You didn’t join startups then. You joined a startup if you couldn’t get a real job.

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder San Diego Startup 337

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JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. So it’s unsurprising that typical “A rounds&# of venture capital were $5-10 million.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

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JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The overall trends in our industry have breathed a new life into the venture capital industry. The iPhone was released.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

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DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. Why do they invest in venture capital? We raised $280 million.

Las Vegas 396

Las Vegas St. Louis Southern California San Diego 396

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NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. This is where I spend most of my time.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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APRIL 13, 2011

Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. Brad’s start in Venture Capital. Venture Capital in Boulder and other smaller communities. “So Product Management – Brad and Mark discuss the role of Product Managers in Startups.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

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OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. On December 3rd Brad Feld wrote a one paragraph blog post titled “ Raising Venture Capital &# in which he linked to my blog. Thus is venture capital. Tempus Fugit.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

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OCTOBER 11, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. When they’re first approached it sounds exciting to be involved with a startup and if they’re offered free shares – why not? Tags: Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital.

Advisory Board 306

Advisory Board Startup Equity Valuation 306

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APRIL 26, 2016

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy. But none of this matters if you run out of money.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

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MARCH 25, 2016

Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. Trying outrageous new things or even trying mundane things but in new ways but with extreme quality & innovation is what fuels the tech startup industry. But today I want to give you advice on how to decrease your odds of failure in a startup.

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

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NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. I interviewed Eric for an hour for - This Week in Venture Capital. Importantly we also discussed: should startups raise small amounts of money or large? 11:50 Startup problems!

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Lean Social Media PR 301

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OCTOBER 1, 2009

If you’re a startup, in bad times there is less over-funding of your competitors and therefore less pressure to give everything away for free. It’s my job to invest wisely in entrepreneurs who are capital efficient, who innovate in ways that pay off economically in good markets or bad and who plan for worst-case scenarios.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Stock Hawaii Early Stage 269

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JUNE 27, 2013

Santa Monica is the place where the highest concentration of early-stage startups are created if you consider also the contiguous geography of Venice Beach. Perhaps the biggest piece of new news is that after 17 years of operations we’ve changed our name from GRP Partners to Upfront Ventures. Startup Advice'

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

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APRIL 21, 2010

In addition to the P2P deals covered below, on the show we also talked about some of my favorite financing startups ( Wonga in the UK run by Errol Damelin , who is a superstar) and Affordit.com run by serial (and I mean serial!) They have done 3 startups in the customer support space and one that wasn’t. 2.2mm in Series A.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Social Network Angel Investor Chad 265

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APRIL 8, 2010

I was on This Week in Venture Capital today with Jason Calacanis talking about the big VC deals at the moment and talking about the VC industry. I’d embed the video but it doesn’t seem to allow you to do this so here’s the link the This Week in Startups, Inaugural show. We discussed some of the recent IPOs.

Venture Capital 232

Venture Capital IPO Valuation Deal Flow 232

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DECEMBER 14, 2016

Today is amongst the proudest days I’ve had at Upfront Ventures — getting the chance to announce that Kevin Zhang has been promoted to Partner. years at Upfront has been both a pleasure and also has taught me a lot about venture capital. I mentioned at the start that Kevin has taught me something about Venture Capital.

Partner 150

Partner South Korea Venture Capital Europe 150

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APRIL 14, 2010

If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. It is 2010. But pass they will. Brain damage. Reputation.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Common Stock Dividend 289

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

Having re-read it, I believe his real premise instead is, “Fixed-size, multi-investor angel rounds are such a bad idea for startups that one wonders why things were ever done that way.&#. Either would be fine with startups, so long as they can easily change their valuation. When I’m in, I’m in. rings true to me.

Finance 286

Finance Term Sheet Technical Review Warrant 286

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JULY 16, 2010

One is the “denominator problem&# which says that if an LP invests X% (the denominator) into “alternative investments&# such as venture capital and if their total amount available to invest (the numerator) goes down by 30% then the amount they allocate to VC will by definition need to go down by 30% to stay the same percentage.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

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SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? What Does this Mean for a Venture Capital Firm?

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

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DECEMBER 7, 2014

I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. But if you want to build a fast-growing, tech-enabled startup it’s hard to imagine doing so without venture capital and lambasting VCs publicly probably isn’t the most thoughtful strategy.

Software Review 341

Software Review Customer Technical Review LP 341

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NOVEMBER 12, 2009

This is part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice Startup Advice. I recently wrote a post on how to Deal with your Elephants in the Room during your VC meetings.

Technical Review 311

Technical Review Venture Capital Due Diligence Partner 311

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Tags: Startup Advice This Week in Venture Capital. It was accept the terms or go into bankruptcy so we took the money.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

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JUNE 17, 2017

There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up because, “How could they succeed when they’re not even profitable!” What did they actually do?

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227