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A Seed Fund Grows in Brooklyn: Announcing Brooklyn Bridge Ventures

This is going to be BIG.

In fact, it’s what Henry Blodget told me I should do the first time I met him--back in May of 2007 during a pre-Business Insider lunch at Coffee Shop. I was no different--and the possibility of doing something on my own has been a long term goal. I won’t fund everything, but hopefully I can help everyone out who comes to see me.w.

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Finding an Investor Who is in Love with You

Both Sides of the Table

If I had to put a number on it I’d say 1 in 20 pitches – maybe 1 in 30 – are by an entrepreneur who comes across as truly passionate about her project. You need a great concept in which you will build something that is truly unique and that will be valued by your customers. I know that sounds corny but it’s true.

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Do Less. More.

Both Sides of the Table

I feel more comfortable in my skin and accept that I can’t return every email, I can’t take every startup pitch, I can’t attend ANY demo days ( did I mention I don’t like demo days ?), I can’t be at every great out-of-town meetup and I certainly can’t “ chuck in money to every party round.”

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Why Startups Should Raise Money at the Top End of Normal

Both Sides of the Table

2007, 2011) and for the hottest of companies and in bad markets for fund raising (2003, 2008) prices test the bottom end of the range. I saw this kind of pricing when I first entered the VC market in 2007. To any prospective investor you look like you’ve failed even before your first pitch. I raised my A round at a $31.5

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Optimize for authentic relationships, not bluster

This is going to be BIG.

More importantly, I know them both for a while--Hilary since August of 2007 through twitter and, of course, getting to work with her at Path 101, and Kara since I used to e-mail her about her Boomtown columns in the WSJ over ten years ago. When someone comes in to pitch me, I always ask them to tell me the "origin story".

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Spotting, Nurturing and Mentoring Talent – The Power of Troy Carter

Both Sides of the Table

When Troy and Lady Gaga were introduced the market had been in a free fall from the financial crisis of 2007-09 and Troy had had some setbacks professionally while Lady Gaga was sleeping on her grandmother’s couch in West Virginia, having just been dropped by Def Jam Records. Same with Gaga. “It was a series of inflection points.

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What the Past Can Tell Us About the Future of Social Networking

Both Sides of the Table

It had grown stratospherically from 2004-2007 to 100 million users, which actually was slightly smaller in December 2007 then MySpace was. 18 months ago 25% of all pitches to me were ideas for how to build products around Twitter’s API. In May 2007 there were fears that Google was becoming a monopoly.