Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

Two weeks after Brad’s post I was at the 140 Conference in LA and I held open office hours for any entrepreneur who wanted to spend 15 minutes talking with a VC about their business. As a technologist he felt the US was “ground zero&# for technology innovation. In 2007 Salesforce.com wanted to buy Koral.

education

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

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). We talked about Facebook. But it’s a real phenomenon.

VC

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

Dream It

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

From 2007 to 2011, during which the Great Recession of 2008-09 took place, the construction industry lost approximately 2 million workers. Overall, we are very optimistic about construction robotics and hope to see more companies attempt to solve the issues in productivity with breakthrough technologies, as well as innovative business models.

construction

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Lawyers and accountants tend to err on the conservative side, leading to a low failure rate of businesses but less “moonshot innovation,” shall we say. Today, pitch competitions, incubators, accelerators, VCs and angel groups proliferate. Olaf Hannemann, partner, CV VC AG. Claude Donzé , partner, Tomahawk.VC.

startup

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

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. What Did I Learn From the First VC Check I Ever Wrote?

VC

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

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

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

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

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

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2016

In 2007 I started using Twitter and most of my friends & colleagues wondered why people would care what I ate for lunch. In 2008 I started VC blogging. Sometimes they take off and they reward the early innovators. In 2006 I started using Facebook and most of my friends & colleagues thought I was strange.

networking

TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

5 investors discuss Boston’s resilient tech ecosystem Boston’s university-to-startup pipeline defies downturn to grow and diversify In order to build a startup culture, a city or region needs some key elements in place – like an innovation engine to drive startup ideas. It also has a long history of innovation and a rich tech legacy.

startup founder

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

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

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

TechCrunch

APRIL 4, 2023

According to the Israel Innovation Authority the tech industry provides 54% of Israel’s exports, giving it an enormous potential influence. “There have been VC funds who have just stepped up and said, you know the way we spend money on little meetups and parties? ’” This is not a marginal issue, either.

communities

OurCrowd

MAY 11, 2020

Historically, venture investing right after major market downturns – such as after the Internet bubble burst in 2000-2002, and after the financial crisis of 2007-2009 — has proved lucrative because you’re buying at a discount. That’s a very good entry point for new venture investors.

venture capital

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. The industry did that in 2007.

ventures

TechCrunch

APRIL 8, 2021

While Nigeria and Kenya have been at the forefront of African fintech innovation, activities in Egypt are beginning to shape up nicely. An additional $15 million was raised from the same investors led by Dubai-based VC firm Global Ventures. million Series A round. In July 2020, Paymob raised $3.5 In July 2020, Paymob raised $3.5

incumbents

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

FundersClub

JUNE 30, 2017

Jerrod Engelberg and Kevin Lee of FundersClub discuss board of directors, why they exist, how they work in public companies vs startups, what founders should be thinking about when dealing with a board of directors, and more in " Transparent VC, Episode 6: It’s All About That Board. part 1 of 2). " Did You Know?

construction

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

It conjures up a range of emotions anytime I’ve privately expressed my opinion to thought leaders in our industry that I believe it is one of the most innovative companies in digital media. Some, of course, agree with me that BuzzFeed has been and continues to be the gold standard innovator in digital media to emulate.

media

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

FIS bought eFunds in 2007 for about $1.8 He was inspired to start Payall after concluding that there “had been essentially no innovation, or marginal innovation, in the cross-border payments space in over 50 years.”. Palmer then went on to co-found Adaptive Payments, which sold to Mastercard in 2015.

finance