Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

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Haystack

JANUARY 18, 2020

Having spent time around and then in the world of VC in the Bay Area during the last decade, I’ve been reflecting on how different norms in the industry have changed. At the start of 2010, there was some unwritten VC industry conventions that have been tested, challenged, and upended in the last decade. That is for another post.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 11, 2021

David Teten is founder of Versatile VC and writes periodically at teten.com and @dteten. Jamie Finney is a founding partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund , where he blogs about his work on VC and small communities. From traditional equity VC, flexible VC borrows the option to pursue and reap the rewards of an outsized exit.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2015

I’m so tired of seeing young entrepreneurs get screwed by their angel investors on convertible notes and I know I can’t convince you not to do it so I’d like to offer one simple bit of advice to help you avoid getting screwed (at least on one part of your note). They get their full investment as a 1x liquidation preference.

entrepreneurs 381

entrepreneurs VC advice financing 381

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

As I wrote then: I don’t think a VC firm should manage to a pacing number. In the last two years, the VC business has been operating at a blistering pace, the fastest I’ve witnessed in my 35 years in the business (including the 99/00 era). ” Making sound investment decisions in a week is doable. But it is exhausting.

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Founder Bounty

JANUARY 12, 2023

Very few solo entrepreneurs raise capital alone and YC ( of the best early stage VC;s for pre seed investments) out there hardly takes solo entprenreurs for a reason. Top VC's recommend 50, 50 between you are your co founder if there are 2 of you. Dont use paid marketing Create a blog and start creating content!

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entrepreneurship entrepreneurs VC founder 98

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. Since I answer this all the time anyway I thought it might make an interesting blog post. At least for the best entrepreneurs. And the VC job has plenty of admin and minutiae.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 5, 2014

In my experience many VC’s fall into this “I’m expected to know all the answers” trap. For me, after nearly a decade in the trenches of being an entrepreneur I felt I was un-brainwashed from trying to pretend I had all the answers. And I encourage entrepreneurs to triangulate as well. It is unknowable.

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Hunter Walk

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

This triggered entrepreneurs to start breeding cobras to collect the bounty. In many cases, I’ve seen situations where there are founder-acceptable outcomes that are below-the-line outcomes for VCs, and that conversation goes unsaid or unexamined. To curb the population the government paid a bounty for dead cobras.

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venture capital real estate capital ventures 54

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She actually IS the prototypical entrepreneur. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press. But Tracy did what entrepreneurs do. Sam is the managing director of Launchpad LA and we were about to pick our 2012 class of entrepreneurs.

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peer-to-peer entrepreneurs startup entrepreneurship 363

Entrepreneur's Handbook

JUNE 15, 2022

In this week’s edition, we discuss: Creating successful online courses, Unexpected turnarounds to become investors, Sources of investment during an economic downturn. Don’t make your course feel like a prison sentence they have to complete to recoup their investment. Send blog posts, not sales emails ?—?Rather Sign up here.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I know many super experienced entrepreneurs who don’t understand the basics of how fund size and age can affect them so I thought it was worth establishing a baseline. Let me explain: 1.

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David Teten VC

MAY 19, 2017

Historically VC has been an apprenticeship business. VC ASSOCIATIONS. No-cost accelerators: Afore Capital Angel to Fund Manager (AFM), Founder Institute VC Lab , Recast Capital Enablement Program – Accelerators with tuition: Oper8r , OnConduit ‘s Emerging Fund Managers Initiative. Reboot VC Bootcamp.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. I attended events.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings). I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. I guarantee this is a bad VC. There are many great VCs.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 16, 2014

How long does it take from first meeting a VC to getting cash in the bank? I went back across the 21 investments I''ve made both at First Round and at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures --a period that dates back to January 28, 2010, when I closed on Backupify. That''s an interesting question. So what''s taking so long?

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 22, 2021

At the time, seven-figure seed investments in African startups were a rarity. These investments are usually made by third-party investors (friends and family), and range between $25,000-$150,000. Andreata Muforo is a partner at TLcom Capital, a pan-African early-stage VC firm. So why the sudden change in appetite from investors?

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ). Lindel Eakman led the discussion with Fred and Andy.

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leadership VC venture capital ventures 161

Startup Grind

AUGUST 13, 2018

Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth. Given the success of her investments she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists. What and when was your very first investment? I really admire David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer at Yale.

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David Teten VC

JANUARY 19, 2021

His work on VC and small communities can be found at greatercolorado.vc/blog. raised money from VCs and 7.7% More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. A new category of VCs have emerged offering a hybrid between VC and RBI, which we call “Flexible VC”. .

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David Teten VC

JANUARY 19, 2021

His work on VC and small communities can be found at greatercolorado.vc/blog. This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

One of things I’ve loved the most about doing now 11 weeks of This Week in VC is a chance to have an hour-long recorded conversation with investors. One of the most difficult things to do as a first time entrepreneur is to get to know the investors you might be working with if you accept money. So how did Mike get into VC?

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 15, 2023

After landing an initial investment, founders feel confirmed that their model and pitch work. Never underestimate the power of community Investor relations are undergoing a shift from a VC-centric model to community-driven funding. “I think crowdfunding and blockchain will revolutionize startup investing,” said Mohammadi.

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pitching consulting advice communities 218

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. I’m not a doomsday guy, but just believe that we won’t see a V shaped recovery, which could make VC funding more difficult for tech start-ups (don’t shoot the messenger!).

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VC startup advice innovation 269

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2010

They had received a term sheet from a VC and were wondering whether to work with this firm. You’re tied at the hip to your VC. Get to know VCs over a long period of time so that when you’re ready to get engaged you feel you know their character. Good recruiters never stop at the official list and neither do VCs.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. And if you are – what on earth are you reading such a boring blog as this?!? I only recently invested and I only got here through persistence.

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OurCrowd

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

SALT Talks-OurCrowd Pandemic Venture Investment Series (Part 1). Venture Partners , a Menlo Park-based VC firm that backed companies like Checkpoint Software Technologies Ltd. chairman of OurCrowd, in an interview in the SALT Talks-OurCrowd Pandemic Venture Investment Series Oct 29. Watch the full episode here. and Box Inc.

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David Teten VC

JANUARY 21, 2021

His work on VC and small communities can be found at greatercolorado.vc/blog. This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I was reading Chris Dixon’s blog tonight. I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. I just completed an exercise where I went out to hire a new associate for my VC firm, GRP Partners.

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Onevest

APRIL 1, 2015

By Michael "Luni" Libes In the traditional world of early stage, Angel and VC investing, money is local. Studies show that over 80% of funding at Angel groups and Series A VCs goes to businesses in the same city/region as the funders. Over in the impact investing space, this rule is not true. Read the original post here.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2011

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Chris Sacca fly by that prompted me to want to write a blog post helping entrepreneurs understand why they should push back against VCs asking for “super pro-rata” rights. I’ll explain what they are and why you should avoid them if you can. A primer on “pro-rata” rights.

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 3, 2012

Instead of just e-mailing people and dealing with them directly, as we do in person, we're a blog post away from a flamewar. What I would offer to entrepreneurs is that you should know what you're getting from each investor you let into the round. Of course, you don't always need that experience from a VC. Doesn't take much.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. We spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about industry trends (in this order): The history and background of True Ventures, one of my favorite early-stage VC’s (and the one with whom Om is a venture partner). DST invested $180mm last fall.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting. I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. The “Triple Play&# of VC Presentations.

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David Teten VC

DECEMBER 3, 2019

However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and. The 11 Steps of Investing in Private Companies. 1) Manage the firm .

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. Ability to Pivot – I don’t like to invest in people that I’ve never met before who come through my office wanting to have a term sheet within 30 days.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 17, 2021

I recall when my partner Brad and I were raising our first USV fund, back in 2003, and potential investors wondered about my blogging habit. They asked if I was making a mistake telegraphing our investment thesis for everyone to see, including our “competitors.” And that turned out to be the case. And she explains why.

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