Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. Most top tier VCs return about 3x invested capital and outlier funds (the best of a vintage) might return 6-8x. But VC is like congress. billion in returns.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. One of my goals in doing the show was not only to educate entrepreneurs but also to put a human face on many of the VCs in our industry as VCs can be hard to get to know. 5:00 – 5:55). 6:00 – 7:30).

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. “My This time frame – 2005/2006 – web 2.0 Brad on blogging.

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Both Sides of the Table

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. It included some well known firms that made me come for a team pitch and then only gave me literally 15 minutes when we’d scheduled an hour. My blog was wiped out. Tempus Fugit.

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VC venture capital pitching capital 274

TechCrunch

APRIL 6, 2022

VCs invested over $5.5 billion across 412 deals in 2021, more than double the amount of capital invested in 2020, according to PitchBook data. TechCrunch Live is a free weekly event featuring investors, founders, and startups with the goal of helping entrepreneurs build better venture-backed businesses. Register here.

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real estate VC angel investing culture 97

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

I’m writing this post to explain to entrepreneurs what you should be thinking about in terms of the VC’s you approach and the size and stage of their funds. VC’s don’t invest 100% of their own money. And funds also have investments from the partners of the firm. What is total assets under management? -

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VC venture capital investing investment 269

TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

the founders of a young company hailing from Cambridge, England addressed a crowd of celebrities, investors and entrepreneurs at Y Combinator’s August Demo Day promising a revolution in food science. “Sugar is a massive consumer of water and in contrast, there’s big sustainability pitch for what we do.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

This post highlights some of the reasons why the market is moving again and what entrepreneurs should do about this. There’s no doubt (at least anecdotally) that the pace of VC investments in early-stage technology companies has picked up in the past few months. Because you have multiple forces at work. billion.

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VC venture capital networking innovation 255

OnStartups

MARCH 24, 2021

An Odd Start To My Angel Investing. So I thought of an idea: Why not invest in startups? That way, I still get to stay in touch with the thrill of startups, but I could do it vicariously through other entrepreneurs. Angel investing is like having a niece or nephew. The Entrepreneur vs. Investor Dilemma.

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angel investing investing investment pitching 125

Don Dodge

APRIL 6, 2015

Angel investing in tech startups is a gut wrenching and risky business. Most of them lose, but sometimes you invest in a “unicorn” and make 100 times your money or even more. But if you invest smartly, and spread your risk over a large portfolio, the winners will pay for all the losers and return a nice overall profit.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 25, 2013

Back in 2006, when I started working on putting together some community groups for entrepreneurs and tech people, I looked for a better name to reference this collection of people. Interior of the Batcave, 2006 ( Jake Dobkin / Gothamist). Tech community" seemed too much about people soldering things together and writing code.

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communities innovation creativity real estate 285

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This led Roy Rodenstein (whose company Going.com was sold to AOL ) and others to discuss , what happens when VC’s need to invest across multiple funds. Even more complicated, VCs often invest from multiple funds or sub-funds into a single deal. So as an entrepreneur it’s hard to navigate those waters over time.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Pitching a VC “ There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents. 2006 was the last time I went out to raise venture capital. They said they believed in aligning investor and entrepreneur incentives. I totally agree.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal. We exchanged ideas when I was an entrepreneur along side him in NorCal in 05-07 and my point-of-view on founder / VC relationships hasn’t shifted even 1% since I went to the dark side. I believe this is wrong.

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founder VC advice pitching 329

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 8, 2020

That only changed in 2019, when it decided to incur losses in favor of investing millions trying to conquer the U.S. Pitch perfect, you might think. Between 2006 and 2008, Klarna continued to grow as more people started shopping online. market, choosing New York and L.A. over San Francisco for its American offices.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

A reminder that it is important for all entrepreneurs is to remember to be careful about “deal drift.” When Salesforce.com decided to buy my company in December 2006 I dropped everything and focused religiously on closure. Conversely I offered the same deal to another entrepreneur who decided to shop around longer.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

Help them better do their job – I’ve always been a big believer that relationships with journalists are a long-term investment. Robert Scoble interviewed me in 2006 about my startup, Koral. I wasn’t trying to pitch a tightly controlled message about my company. Might be true, but not in your best interests.

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advice media startup SaaS 307

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 8, 2020

That only changed in 2019, when it decided to incur losses in favor of investing millions trying to conquer the U.S. Pitch perfect, you might think. Between 2006 and 2008, Klarna continued to grow as more people started shopping online. market, choosing New York and L.A. over San Francisco for its American offices.

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investing investment mix-use media 82

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

It was obviously a scheme set up by young entrepreneurs to line their pockets and some big-company executives who didn’t understand innovation. 18 months ago 25% of all pitches to me were ideas for how to build products around Twitter’s API. This was Politburo-style innovation and was laughable. Enter Facebook.

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networking mix-use innovation development 318

propel(x)

MARCH 2, 2017

However, Cleantech has long been considered an investing black hole where it’s impossible to make money. Here steps in Jason Holt, former staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, serial entrepreneur, and a seasoned investment advisor. Venture investment in the sector has remained pretty flat the last several years.

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energy advice technology mix-use 70