Dream It

APRIL 3, 2020

In this episode, the two discussed how you can effectively sell in an environment where budgets are being cut, executive decision-makers are distracted with other priorities, and companies are less inclined to invest in innovation. His strategy for selling in 2009 is relevant to any economic downturn. What keeps them up at night?

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pitching strategy advice board 221

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

In the early spring of 2009, the fundraising nuclear winter of the previous year hadn't yet thawed. It would be months before Foursquare's first round touched off a NYC venture frenzy. I'm ecstatic to announce that Brooklyn Bridge Ventures has just completed a first close of $3.5

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ventures pitching VC startup ecosystem 280

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

In SoCal we have Crosscut Ventures, Matt Coffin, Mike Jones, Klaus Schauser, etc. They have advice to share. They know that the money they invest may be lost. Make sure these people understand the nature of early-stage angel investing. All deals – especially (but not only) those that got venture funded.

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advice VC pitching angel investing 291

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There are too many pulls & tugs at our elbows for time, for coffee meetings, for advice or speaking engagements or cocktail parties or dinners. My general advice is to do less. I offer the same advice for many of my friends who are newer VCs. I still plan to keep more normal pace of investment which is 1-2 deals per year.

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on the skills I’ve developed in my career. To some extent Keith Rabois agreed with me about domain knowledge and argued that most of his investments are in the consumer Internet space as a result. Always have been.

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angel investing investing investment VC 284

TechCrunch

MARCH 28, 2023

The Tory Burch Foundation, which was launched in 2009 by fashion designer Tory Burch, has a long history of supporting women entrepreneurs. It’s best known for its fellowship program that provides education grants, networking opportunities and business advice to women entrepreneurs. billion in venture capital allocated to U.S.

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capital founder education startup ecosystem 94

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Closing a VC fund in 2009/10 is a major achievement in and of itself. Total raised: $83mm; Series B round (July 2009 for $43mm) valued company at $400mm. OTHER DEALS: 1.

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VC peer-to-peer advice collaboration 240

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

In particular I tried to do most of the “entrepreneur advice on VC” up front so that if you don’t want to watch our views on the deals you don’t have to. Recently raised $7 million from Atlas Ventures out of Boston. And the broader question of whether VC’s will continue to invest in the Twitter ecosystem. Total round was $2.5

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VC founder advice ventures 214

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. Unemployment continues to rise – Unemployment as of September 2009 is 9.7% This has a tangible impact on the valuation of start-ups and the pace of investment.

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VC startup advice innovation 269

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on my background. I should say that I agree that naive optimism in entrepreneurs can produce higher beta (upside or flops) and that’s good from an investment standpoint if you’re looking for big returns.

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angel investing investing investment VC 152

TechCrunch

JULY 27, 2021

in 2004 before falling sharply due to the economic recession of 2007-2009. Sequoia Capital led the round and was joined by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation venture investment arm Arrive, Will Smith’s Dreamers VC and existing investor Signia Venture Partners. The rate reached its peak of 69.2% The rate reached 63.7%

real estate 98

real estate health VC advice 98

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

Year-in, year-out, the gender gap in venture capital investment continues to be a problem women founders face. In fintech, the problem is especially prominent: Women-founded fintechs have raised a meager 1% of total fintech investment in the last 10 years. Venture capital is far from a level playing field.

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VC startup leadership communities 123

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2014

It was 2009 and it was terribly difficult to get any financing (if you can remember a time like that!) We formed a partnership with some of our favorite early stage investors and friends including Jim Andelman at Rincon Ventures and Peter Lee at Baroda. Jim raised another venture fund as did I at Upfront Ventures.

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accelerator mentorship peer-to-peer VC 290

Startup Grind

AUGUST 13, 2018

Prior to co-founding Floodgate , she worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth. Given the success of her investments she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists. I love teaching.

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VC entrepreneurship pitching strategy 111

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. But there are many zombie VC’s with no more investments left in their portfolios so it’s hard to know which trend has more impact.

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VC venture capital networking innovation 255

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

otherwise I prefer to invest less and risk less). In a world where the economy only heads in one direction (read: 2009-2014) most investors & entrepreneurs forget to pay attention to gross burn. Understand how venture debt might shorten your projections. * If you have raised venture debt you might have even less time.

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startup VC frameworks capital 383

WSJ - The Accelerators

JULY 2, 2015

ED ZIMMERMAN : The funnel for venture funding isn’t cylindrical — it’s shape follows a more Darwinian conical path, as many seed stage companies march into the cone’s wide entrance and far fewer make it to the cone’s narrow end. Only 4% of the 160 startups from the class of 2009 completed a 6 th funding round by April 2014.

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ventures incumbents venture capital financing 28

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. So I like that bit, too.

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startup VC venture capital culture 390

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 8, 2021

” The software development agency has worked on more than 350 digital products since its founding in 2009, for startups of all sizes. Testimonial: “Fifth Star Funds (our fund) is a venture philanthropy fund focused on closing the funding gap for Black founders, at the family and friends round. Which is an advantage.”

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consulting startup education B2B marketing 94

Gust

OCTOBER 8, 2014

There weren’t a lot of seed funds in 2007 so this was often done by angels, funding consortia or sometimes early-stage funds that existed then (First Round Capital, True Ventures, SoftTech VC, etc.). Whom you take advice from really matters. But my advice to entrepreneurs – stop sweating the silly optics. So back to reality.

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VC advice financing finance 136

Hunter Walk

AUGUST 26, 2022

From Box to Glossier, and Comms to Venture Capital, Ashley Mayer Is Carving a Pretty Unique Path. And then take your experience and turn it into a piece of thought leadership career advice to share with people reading this. What She’s Learned, And What You Can Learn From Her. We had overlapping circles and then became friends.

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VC advice energy capital 76

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

First, I’d like to quote (paraphrase) Brad Feld speaking at Twiistup in LA in 2009, “I keep hearing people in LA talking with a chip on their shoulders about building a tech business here relative to Silicon Valley. Funding is different – In Silicon Valley you have mega venture capital funds and many of them.

technology 290

technology advice innovation entrepreneurs 290

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

When venture capitalists scale back investing activities it can be very swift and leave many companies that are in the process of fund raising hung out to dry. I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. Short answer – yes.

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VC board investing investment 263

Tomasz Tunguz

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Unlike these other companies, WorkDay has employed a huge professional services team in addition in investing massively in their R&D to create a broad suite of products. In 2009 and 2010, the company recognized more revenue from services than subscription. Behind this advice is some sage advice, however.

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SaaS advice venture capital investing 44

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 17, 2014

In July of 2009, the UK instituted a new network known as Faster Payment Service with same day settlement to replace their equivalent of ACH. Many blame Dodd-Frank and the consolidation post 2009 for the loss of free checking. It was simply too complicated to remain fully invested and properly allocated all the time.

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disruption financing finance incumbents 83

Founders Coop

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Just two years later, in 2009, we worked out a deal to create the Techstars Seattle program, with our first program running in 2010. From the beginning, we were deeply committed to Techstars’ “give first” ethos and mentorship-driven approach to startup investing. Bottom line, Techstars needed cash.

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startup ecosystem accelerator communities support 195

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

So then when I wanted to go into venture capital, they said, “You can’t do that, you need to be in EIR.” So when I got into venture capital, I thought, “Well, what can I do that’s different?” That means I do one or two investments per year, and I see a lot. ” I said, “Why?”

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startup entrepreneurs consulting board 337

Y Combinator

APRIL 24, 2024

Last week we shared some awesome news: David Lieb, the creator of Bump (part of the summer 2009 batch!) How’d you come to join YC back in Summer of 2009? All of our classmates were interviewing for jobs at investment banks, etc, and that just sounded terrible to us. We’re consuming our own advice.

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founder startup advice VC 102

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Clearly, Alexandria, Virginia-based QED was investing in fintech before fintech was “cool.” As evidence of that, the firm led Credit Karma’s Series A in 2009; led Remitly’s Series A in 2014 and participated in Nubank’s Series A in 2014. That’s especially true as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to (sadly) rage on.

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investing investment capital advice 91

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. We spoke about the changes to an “accredited investor&# proposed by Chris Dodd – This would be bad for angel investing. Swipely – Blippy competitor founded by TellMe founder, Angus Davis, in Fall 2009.

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VC financing finance advice 285

TechCrunch

AUGUST 10, 2021

Companies that have reached $5 million to $10 million in annual revenue are more likely to assemble growth teams; it’s a smart investment for any startup that’s achieved product-market fit. We frequently run articles with advice for founders who are working on pitch decks. Kickstarter’s CEO on the future of crowdfunding.

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pitching disruption mix-use leadership 96

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2010

This week I was preparing for my weekly This Week in Venture Capital web show and was researching some of the deals that were announced for the week. So my advice was to focus a bit more. billion (plus an earn out that could have totalled $4 billion but didn’t in the end) in 2005 before selling 65% of the company in 2009 for $1.9

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advice education venture capital strategy 266

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

When I described to people why I initially invested my calls went something like this, “He’s taken kicks to the face for nearly 2 years and is still standing. Because my wife is a superstar she published them all on a blog here along with much other wonderful type-A mom advice. Through this process he raised $2 million.

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VC peer-to-peer investing investment 292

Entrepreneur's Handbook

JULY 22, 2022

( Any views expressed in the below are the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions. ) ( Note to reader: this week’s essay is a continuation of my piece from last week, “A Samurai, a Knight, and a Yankee”.

energy 133

energy support real estate investing 133

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Venture Capitalists typically have partners’ meetings on Mondays. By 2008 I had gotten more serious about championing companies through our investment process. And just when I thought I had the deal that was worthy of bringing to investment committee the world changed. Let’s review all of our existing investments.

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VC disruption entrepreneurs venture capital 305

TechCrunch

APRIL 6, 2022

She also covers consumer packaged goods startups, and medical tech and biotechnology ventures. He launched his latest venture, Strangeworks in 2018 and raised $4 million in seed stage capital. In addition, he created Ecliptic Capital, a $100 million evergreen investment fund that could grow to $150 million by the end of the year.

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transportation entrepreneurship capital entrepreneurs 93

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “ when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two ” (e.g. This class of investors is more diversified across categories plus is investing personal money and therefore feels the hit in assets declines first. Either won’t bode well for angels if they’re also hurting on non tech investments.

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entrepreneurs real estate VC advice 298