Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

But knowing the right people and knowing a market only works well for angel investors in bullish tech markets in which IPO’s happen quickly (97-99) or where larger companies are actively scooping up little tiny companies at sub $50 million valuations to drive innovation (05-08, 10-?). got picked up early without raising a lot of VC.

angel investing 152

angel investing investing investment VC 152

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

Argument two says, “big companies can’t innovate anymore so Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. If the “forever ramen profitable&# or “startups as a source of M&A innovation&# arguments don’t hold then we’re likely headed for one big brick wall. We’ll re-compare notes then. Why should you care?

angel investing 299

angel investing investing investment real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

What is the True Sentiment of VCs? I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” But not a VC or Bill Gurley or myself would have spooked it 2 years ago.

startup 285

startup VC entrepreneurs real estate 285

TechCrunch

MARCH 9, 2021

There are so many trailblazing innovations that we don’t talk about a lot about Nigeria, like the BVN and the NIP system. Nigeria has consistently been at the forefront of payments innovation for over a decade, and it was all possible because of the forward-looking CBN policies,” he said.

capital 145

capital frameworks investing investment 145

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. I said that I felt that Micro-VCs were the most important change in our industry. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs.

real estate 309

real estate entrepreneurs financing finance 309

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My original thinking from Oct ’09 was, while I didn’t (and still don’t) have a crystal ball I worried that: consumers were over-stretched with debt (and make up 77% of the economy), unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of M&A activity and VC investment even further.

entrepreneurs 298

entrepreneurs real estate VC advice 298

Founders Coop

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

This post is an attempt to unpack the changes we observed both during and after our time with Techstars, to draw out potentially useful lessons about how things might have gone differently. ——— In the Beginning: Champions of the Local Startup Ecosystem Techstars launched its first program in Boulder in 2007.

startup ecosystem 195

startup ecosystem accelerator communities support 195

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

Scott remained at Adobe, managing the deep integration of Behance into the Adobe Creative Cloud and leading Adobe’s innovative mobile product efforts. In 2007 he founded 99U, an annual conference attended by thousands of design leaders and creative professionals.

creativity 56

creativity entrepreneurship venture capital entrepreneurs 56

Don Dodge

APRIL 6, 2015

They were part of the Ycombinator Cambridge class of 2007, after being rejected by YC in 2005 and 2006. I remember the Demo Day in 2007 where DropBox presented to about 30 Boston area Angels and Venture Capital investors. None of the local VC firms invested. Classic VC funding is a well-understood model.

incubation 40

incubation angel investing pitching venture capital 40

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 2, 2021

Interestingly, many years later, Square would use other innovative “cash giveaway” strategies to steal market share from Paypal (in addition to copying the give $5, get $5 model ). Is it disrespectful to imply that the founders, executives, VC-backers, and the boards of these companies are gullible or naive? I don’t think so.

peer-to-peer 82

peer-to-peer VC advice capital 82

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 8, 2020

The real innovation was a business one, with Klarna’s young and non-technical founders, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Niklas Adalberth and Victor Jacobsso, taking an old idea and reconfiguring it for the burgeoning e-commerce industry. However, what is made less explicit is that there was likely very little technology involved.

investing 143

investing investment mix-use media 143

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

That success has been bolstered by the fact that the UK is among the world’s most innovative financial services regulatory environments. Regulation is generally a blocker to innovation. In 2007, it became one of the first markets in the world to issue contactless (tap-to-pay) cards. (A A full 8 years earlier than the U.S.)

innovation 118

innovation disruption enablement support 118

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 8, 2020

The real innovation was a business one, with Klarna’s young and non-technical founders, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Niklas Adalberth and Victor Jacobsso, taking an old idea and reconfiguring it for the burgeoning e-commerce industry. However, what is made less explicit is that there was likely very little technology involved.

investing 82

investing investment mix-use media 82