StartupNation

MARCH 30, 2021

Dear Founder: Congratulations for taking the plunge—for committing to work full-time on that startup concept you’ve been pursuing. I’ll share some advice based on work on entrepreneurial failure that I’ve done as a Harvard Business School professor. So, you should follow the conventional advice—most of the time.

founder

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

They never did any PR or marketing to get their videos to first get shown on the news during the 2000 election. Working with a family member (Evan, the co-founder is his brother)? Advice, coaching, intros? All viral adoption starts with one thing – great content. That’s what JibJab focused on.

mix-use

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Invidi is based in New York and founded in 2000. 5mm in Series A – Investors: GRP (Mark Suster)(lead), Greycroft Partners (Dana Settle), and Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills) – Read more: TechCrunch , SoCalTech. Swipely – Blippy competitor founded by TellMe founder, Angus Davis, in Fall 2009.

VC

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. The discussion with Howard Morgan starts off by acknowledging Josh Kopelman as a co-founder of First Round Capital. I'm a huge fan of this innovation.

capital

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

My mentor’s advice felt like a parental reprimand. Many successes (and even more failures) later, the advice still rings true. Robin Chase, co-founder of vehicle-sharing business Zipcar, agrees. His advice for business leaders is simple and follows in the same vein: Follow your effort, not your passion.

leadership

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

Everyone knows that founders have been on a whipsaw over the past several years. That’s hard work, and founders should be commended for doing it. What should founders aim for in 2024? 7 (Please note that this isn’t investment advice from me or a16z!) So this raises the question: what now?

incumbents

TechCrunch

MARCH 7, 2023

2008 and 2000), not only have we seen outstanding companies being formed, we’ve also witnessed great venture firm performance during these windows,” he said. Plus, they were gracious enough to share some of the advice they’re giving to their portfolio companies. What advice are you giving to your portfolio companies?

advice

TechCrunch

JULY 30, 2021

The findings may not be troubling if these respondents were millennial startup founders, years from leaving their companies. It’s ironic, then, that three out of five also said that the legacy of a CEO or founder often overshadows the skill set and experience a successor brings.

leadership

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

During a recent Twitter Space, M13 Partner Anna Barber and I looked back at the dot-com crash in search of lessons operators can use to avoid missteps founders have made in past downturns. Instead of instinctively going into survival mode, she said founders should ask themselves existential questions like, “Why did you start this business?

venture capital

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start Up Advice &# but I’d really like to call this post, “VC Advice.&#. On a panel that I sat on with Ron in LA in 2008 he stated that there were no circumstances in which the founder should take money off of the table. It’s that simple. I believe this is wrong.

founder

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. million which closed the first week of March 2000 – a week before the market crashed. I did almost every VC meeting myself save for when one of my co-founders, Tim Barker, was in town. Tags: Start-up Advice. This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital.

startup founder

WSJ - The Accelerators

JULY 2, 2015

Between 2000 and 2002, Industry Canada reported that roughly a quarter of the venture funding for Canadian startups came from the United States, while the converse was not true – Canadian venture capitalists maybe accounted for 1% of venture investments into U.S. Because the U.S.

ventures

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

My co-founder and other management team members wanted us to hold off and see whether we could get the deal done at a higher price. We moved into the legal process and final due diligence in January and February of 2000. Our final closure was the first week of March 2000. I was resolute. They accepted my argument.

venture capital

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. Tags: Pitching VCs Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice VC Industry startup technology vc venture capital. I am very grateful to my friend Zoli Erdos for finding this retro posting for me at web.archive.org.

VC

TechCrunch

APRIL 3, 2022

So when Goldman Sachs announced this week it was buying NextCapital – a fintech company that provides automated advice to corporate retirement plan participants – my ears perked up. At the height of the dot.com boom in the first quarter of 2000, the bank had invested in a record 53 startups.

startup

TechCrunch

JUNE 24, 2022

ET, M13 Managing Partner Karl Alomar will join me on a Twitter Space to share his advice for fundraising during a downturn. Many founders start by building a 10-slide pitch deck, but AR car hardware company WayRay’s Series C presentation contained 75 slides. On Monday, June 27 at 11:30 a.m. PT/2:30 p.m.

angel investing

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

During a recent Twitter Space, M13 Partner Anna Barber and I looked back at the dot-com crash in search of lessons operators can use to avoid missteps founders have made in past downturns. Like a horde of unprofitable startups, Petstore.com’s founders planned to go public. “Don’t believe your own press, right?

advice

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I’ve decided to take all of my private conversations and subjective points-of-view on the topic and make them public in a keynote speech at the Founder Showcase in San Francisco on June 15th. It’s the one bit of advice I find myself giving most frequently these days, “raise money at the top end of normal.&#.

startup

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

Our advice is what helped them target the right market, hire the right team, build the right products.&# And there are some delusional people who really believe it. If you became a principal or a new partner in 2000/01 you had a good salary but as it turns out you were very unlikely to see a large upside “carry” return for quite some time.

entrepreneurs

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

The A round was done in February 2000 (end of the bull market) and my B round was done in April 2001 (bear market). But most importantly I lectured founders that you can’t avoid the admin of setting up your ESOP. If you are thinking about angel investors please read this piece I did on Angel Funding Advice.

venture capital

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2009

My competitors from those days STILL love to talk about how much money we raised in February 2000 (get over it already!). Reach out to the founders, not the staff. Tags: Start-up Advice. Goldman Sachs (an investor in our company) told us we’d IPO within 18 months for $1 billion so not to take any offers. We were hot.

peer-to-peer

Y Combinator

AUGUST 15, 2022

YC’s Anu Hariharan sat down with Gusto co-founder and CPO Tomer London to talk about building for new customer segments and the future of embedded finance — sharing advice for startup founders and CEOs along the way. When you have a grand vision, where do you start as a founder? Choose a customer segment.

founder

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

An investor called the founder, spoke for 30 minutes on the phone and committed to funding having never met the team. Great seed investors like Bryce Roberts / OATV (and other great ones like Floodgate , Founder Collective , Information Arbitrage or Rincon Ventures ) still get all the dealflow the need. Isolated incident?

angel investing

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Just ask anybody who was trying to close funding the fateful week of September 11, 2001 or even March 2000. They should heed the age old advice that raising slightly more money while you can is always better than trying to optimize future valuations.

VC

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 22, 2015

In 2000, I founded VRX Studios, a global photography company for the travel and hospitality industry. Against sound advice, I decided to put my foot on the pedal and gun it. David MacLaren is an EO Vancouver member and the founder and CEO of MediaValet, a cloud-based, digital asset management company.

advice

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2011

Our advice is what helped them target the right market, hire the right team, build the right products.&# And there are some delusional people who really believe it. If you became a principal or a new partner in 2000/01 you had a good salary but as it turns out you were very unlikely to see a large upside “carry” return for quite some time.

entrepreneurs

TechCrunch

JUNE 9, 2022

We love this story from Ron , about the two Luminai founders who went from serial hackathon participants to making it into the S20 cohort of Y Combinator, and who today announced they’ve raised a $16 million round. TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. And came to the same conclusion.

advice

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

So my first advice is not to rush in the fund raising process. when you missed your targets, when your co-founder quit, when the competition chose your competitor or when the other investors around the table lost confidence? Don’t take my advice, take Eric Clapton’s. My chips were down in late 2000 / early 2001.

VC

TechCrunch

JULY 6, 2022

Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

advice

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

There is all sorts of advice on the Internet about how to raise capital. I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. I’ve tried to make this advice as well-rounded and biased free as I can. So they go out of their way to offer advice and introductions.

strategy

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

I freely admit this (along with nearly everything between 1999-2000) was a mistake. That said, don’t complicate the topic – If you’re the founder of a company you likely know a lot about things like Liquidation Preferences and how they affect value allocations when the company is sold. Tags: Startup Advice.

culture

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

My Story: The public coming out for my first company, BuildOnline, was in early 2000. I sat next to Irwin Jacobs (founder of Qualcomm) on a bus ride. Tags: Start-up Advice startup technology. Fame and adoration corrupts first timers. And if you’re not careful you might start to believe your own hype.

media

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2012

I talked to my co-founder Brian Moran (we launched the company in Ireland) about it. 1 week later the market crash of 2000 began and the dot com market began to collapse and financings with it. Now we move to definitive documents (long-form legal docs) and the whole freakin process starts again.

real estate

TechCrunch

AUGUST 11, 2021

Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

advice

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

What can the 2000 dot-com crash teach us about the 2022 tech downturn? Instead of instinctively going into survival mode, M13 partner Anna Barber says founders should ask themselves existential questions like, “Why did you start this business? What can the 2000 dot-com crash teach us about the 2022 tech downturn? Bon appétit!

startup ecosystem

Smart Hustle Magazine

DECEMBER 3, 2019

The event hosted 500 small business owners + influential founders, and attendees experienced live discussion panels that addressed their biggest challenges, received advice on how to ensure their small business thrives, participated in a mentor power hour, and shopped a female founded marketplace.

media

NZ Entrepreneur

JANUARY 28, 2020

Yes, in the 2000’s you could get away with slow page speed… but these days, you only have a few seconds to catch your potential customer. Anthony Baxter is founder and CEO at Firefly Digital. Website speed. In fact, a mere 1 second delay can equal 7% drop of conversions (leads) on your website.

media