VC Cafe

MAY 29, 2022

Building on my post on ‘ Advice for startups in a downturn (May 2022 edition) ‘, this week I continued to follow with interest the impact of the current correction on startups and venture capital, particularly in early stage. How much of the slowdown in venture capital is real vs. ‘doom and gloom’ headlines.

Venture Capital 183

Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation Startup 183

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2013

It is no secret that the world of venture capital (VCs) was turned upside down by the recent Recession, and many other changes in the marketplace. I would conclude that the genesis of this trend comes from several forces, including the following: Less investment capital available.

Angel Investor 231

Angel Investor Entrepreneur Early Stage Silicon Valley 231

Both Sides of the Table

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 pioneering fund of funds realize that their source of differentiation is much more about the latter than the former.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

thebarefootvc

MAY 8, 2012

However, the reality is that I am building a portfolio of investments and, like Brad, I believe in being an active and helpful investor. This takes a lot of time. Money is fast turning into a commodity.

Venture Capital 78

Venture Capital Syndicate Syndication Bandwidth 78

Version One Ventures

APRIL 30, 2013

As a result, most venture capitalists are reluctant to touch hardware projects, opting for the lower costs and smaller risks of software. While my portfolio is primarily centered around consumer internet as well as enterprise SaaS startups, I typically talk to two to three hardware startups each week. Patents versus traction.

Venture Capital 128

Venture Capital Software Review Incubator Startup 128

Austin Startup

MAY 11, 2017

645 Ventures 645 Ventures makes deeply-researched investments in institutional Seed to Series A rounds for exceptional companies who demonstrate stellar early results in the areas of market validation, product differentiation, team strength, and brand narrative.

Private Equity 48

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage 48

Both Sides of the Table

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. portfolios. Many of these businesses were what First Round Capital called FNACs (features, not companies – this acronym has always stuck with me). Going to charge less?

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

It is no secret that the world of venture capital (VCs) has been turned upside down by the recession, and the many other changes in the marketplace. I conclude that the genesis of this trend seems to come from several forces, including the following: Less investment capital available due to the recession.

Technical Review 215

Technical Review Early Stage Venture Capital Startup 215

VC Cafe

AUGUST 17, 2023

I learned so much about the culture, current events, and the Israeli venture capital industry. After spending just two months in the industry, I recognize the importance of venture capital for spurring innovation, especially in Israel. I learned so much aboutIsraeli venture capital and generative AI.

Generative AI 78

Generative AI Venture Capital ChatGPT 78

VC Cafe

APRIL 27, 2011

10 things VCs can do to differentiate themselves and provide more value to potential investments – based on feedback from dozens of entrepreneurs. Despite the VC’s obvious disadvantage in the early stages, marketing and differentiation of venture capital funds is limited today. Have nothing to tweet about?

Venture Capital 90

Venture Capital Differentiation Incubator Angel Investor 90

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

They want to see that you have some unique advantage that differentiates your company from others in your industry, and they’d prefer that you have some experience in that industry, which gives you legitimate insight into the problem you’re attempting to solve. Draw upon connections to help get an audience. Tailor your pitch deck.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 118

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Smart is simply not a differentiator. I would call their portfolio companies and ask how helpful or not they’ve been. And so is venture capital. look at their portfolio list. In fact, book smart can be a negative. I’ve seen other VCs who seem to never have time to get their hands dirty. Commitment.

Portfolio 364

Portfolio Chicago Sales Incubator 364

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Fortieth in a series of weekly posts by myself and Nicholas Lovell of Gamesbrief which answer the fifty questions you should ask before raising venture capital. VCs without experience (which can come from either investing or operating) often struggle to differentiate between a good product and a bad one. askthevc.com).

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Product Venture Capital Differentiation 123

Haystack

JUNE 5, 2018

Not yet profitable but invaluable to developers worldwide, the decade-old company bootstrapped, differentiated from formidable competitors GitLab and Atlassian’s BitBucket, weathered leadership upheavals, and eventually ingested lots of venture capital which helped them weather the challenges they faced.

Acquisition 71

Acquisition Azure Open Source Seattle 71

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Marketing with long payback is precisely what requires venture capital. They literally can’t respond to our core differentiator. Our portfolio company Ring had a new “security doorbell” which is truly a new market. That’s why Ring is amongst the fastest growing company in our portfolio.

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

Hunter Walker

MARCH 25, 2015

Forerunner represented the best of both worlds to me – an opportunity to invest in new and innovative consumer businesses combined with an opportunity to build a new and innovative venture capital firm. HW: Is venture still an “apprenticeship” business? . EK: Absolutely.

Naming 48

Naming Technical Review Early Stage Green 48

Genuine VC

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Last September I wrote a post outlining my view of the venture capital industry: increasingly evolving like the beer industry as it continues to mature. They’ll certainly know the ecosystem and be able to share learnings and network across the portfolio. Local brewers = geography matters.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Seed Stage Entrepreneur LP 150

VC Cafe

APRIL 8, 2011

VC Cafe asked entrepreneurs to tell us what type of help or support they wish they could get from the venture capital investors. What started originally as how can VCs differentiate themselves to stand out, quickly became an Entrepreneur’s wish list from its VCs. If it’s not a cliche, invest in people.

Technical Review 101

Technical Review Due Diligence Hosting Harvest 101

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 8, 2017

Lost My Name, Appear Here and Thread are three of the better known examples, but overall there are 37 companies in that portfolio. However, venture capital is a dynamic business and good focus areas don’t last forever. We chose to be focused for three reasons.

Artificial Inteligence 78

Artificial Inteligence eCommerce Early Stage Algorithm 78

Pascal's View

MARCH 12, 2010

This is the fifth in our series of ten frequently asked questions from investors in venture capital partnerships. Susan Mangiero , CEO of Investment Governance’s Fiduciary X , asked me the following: Question: Please differentiate between the governance of a VC fund versus the governance of companies in a VC fund’s portfolio?

Government 28

Government Portfolio Technical Review Due Diligence 28

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 30, 2015

You incorporate expected company returns, mortality rates, and fee structures to try to predict how a venture capital fund works from a cash in, cash out, and NAV standpoint. And no, the numbers don't exactly add up--but they're more than close enough for venture capital. It's also not the "average fund".

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation IRR Valuation 60

Cracking the Code

MAY 2, 2019

To get an insight into how successful start-ups approach team building, we spoke to Sylvain Utard, employee number 1 and VP of Engineering at Algolia, an Accel portfolio company. Sylvain: Because we don’t have the visibility of a consumer brand or a well-established enterprise company, we focus on what differentiates us.

Part-Time VPE 48

Part-Time VPE Engineer Retention API 48

David Teten

JANUARY 13, 2015

I also was fortunate to gain a lot of insight on this topic from Don Charlton, Founder/CEO, TheResumator *, a ffVC portfolio company. That point of differentiation is a plus not a minus, because it means that he has access to networks you don’t. ff Venture Capital portfolio company. Own your “anti-pattern”.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Advisory Board Greece Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.” are much more differentiating than technology. Personally, I think that customer acquisition, brand, reputation, etc.,

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Version One Ventures

JULY 21, 2020

However, most businesses are looking for network effects, so they are less of a differentiator than they were a decade ago. Amazing, mission-driven founders are found throughout our portfolio. Fast forward to today. We still think that network effects are incredibly valuable.

Founder 213

Founder Vertical Differentiation Portfolio 213

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve written on the expert network industry a fair amount in the past: see How to Earn More Consulting Revenue from Expert Networks and How Executives Can Work with Private Equity and Venture Capital Portfolio Companies. Again, our value can really be differentiated in its scale and depth.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. Your point about the VC portfolio model vs. the entrepreneur’s “portfolio of 1″ is one I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and have also discussed with many other entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. But they are also a tax on your time with portfolio companies, looking for new investments, running your shop and honestly they are a tax on your family life. Inbound is seldom differentiated dealflow.

Cofounder 374

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 374

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

If you choose your name well and it represents what your customers value in you then it will be memorable, differentiated and meaningful. We have a few portfolio companies going through brand changes. We are trying hard to live up to the guidelines we laid out for our investors, our portfolio companies and our community.

Ireland 324

Ireland Jordan Portfolio Flash 324

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

Upfront Ventures has a deep-seated commitment to equality in funding & building diverse teams across all ethnicities, nationalities and genders. We do this not just because it’s the right thing to do but also we believe it will help drive large and differentiated returns. We see this as an open source inclusion clause.

Term Sheet 284

Term Sheet Los Angeles Open Source Portfolio 284

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 17, 2013

I immediately reached out to the founder and CEO, Katrina Lake , who had previously worked for another Benchmark portfolio company in the fashion space, Polyvore. The special differentiation of the company gives it not only the opportunity to be a leader in its field, but also the opportunity to revolutionize an entire industry.

eCommerce 62

eCommerce Technical Review North America San Francisco 62

A Crowded Space

DECEMBER 9, 2013

For me, it’s changed the way I look at my job as an investor in venture capital. So, here are my lessons learned and applications to venture: . At one point, he had just 5 individual companies representing 70% of his public stock portfolio. Seems like a good idea to learn from the best investor in the world. .

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Deal Flow Balance Sheet Down Round 68

The Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

When I started in venture capital in the late 1990s VCs were regularly lambasted for taking long summer holidays and spending too much time on the golf course. Then from the mid 2000s, value add began moving beyond the partner to the firm as VCs began employing people who’s full time job was helping their portfolio.

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

David Teten

AUGUST 6, 2015

My colleague Paul Bianco serves as interim CFO for a number of ff Venture Capital ’s portfolio companies, and has built and reviewed hundreds of financial models. This allows readers to differentiate your file from all of the other files they receive, and also easily track the evolution of your document as it changes.

Balance Sheet 60

Balance Sheet Forecast Software Review Acquisition 60

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). The strategy of GigaOm and where they differentiate in the market.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

He was introduced through mutual friends to Highland Capital. At the time consumer internet venture capital was still suffering from the collapse of the Tech Bubble. But it was an attractive time to enter because the successful internet companies were scaling and in need of capital. Tell us more about MetaCafe? (37:00-40:30).

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 17, 2015

Twenty years ago 3i dominated venture capital in the UK with a very low touch model. Transparency provided by the internet makes this true at all stages, but it’s especially true at the earliest stages where capital requirements have declined precipitously. Uncategorized Venture Capital'

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Venture Capital San Francisco Silicon Valley 60