Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

The culture is driven by the 20-something irreverent founder with huge technical chops who in a “David vs. Goliath” mythology take on the titans of industry and wins. But markets have changed and I think investors, founders and experienced executives who want to join later-stage startups can all benefit from playing the long game.

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This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

Not in the “founder friendly” culture of tech anyway. An examination of several high profile stories this past year about female CEO issues lays bare the other reason: It’s not “founder friendly.” It’s male founder friendly. Founders have to reckon with that. Travis should hire her back?? He should have been long gone.

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This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

In 2010, Antonio Garcia Martinez, the founder of AdGrok, wrote, “New York will always be a tech backwater, I don’t care what Chris Dixon or Ron Conway or Paul Graham say.” Top founders want to live in a place where employees are serious about working hard. Startup founders always need help.

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communities startup real estate mentorship 434

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Following Microsoft’s addressable advertising trials with NBC in June 2009, many suspect that Google’s investment may have some defensive motivations, as well. 5mm in Series A – Investors: GRP (Mark Suster)(lead), Greycroft Partners (Dana Settle), and Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills) – Read more: TechCrunch , SoCalTech.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Investors are the “who’s who” including: Steve Case, Ron Conway, Jack Dorsey, Dave Morin, Betaworks, Founder Collective, AOL Ventures. - $1 million seed round. Recent competitive financings closed by Gilt Groupe ($35mm in 05/2010), OKL (undisclosed value in 12/2009) and Ideeli ($20mm in 12/2009). TechCrunch article.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

We are proud to announce the close of our 7th early-stage fund with $280 million to invest in seed and early stage founders. In fact, I am still active on two boards where I first invested in 2009. We feel blessed to work alongside startup founders who are really rising to the challenge of the more difficult funding environment.

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This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

Did I mention it only took the founder a month? The last closed market we had was from about September 2008 until June 2009--10 months. Most founders that get funded know their backers or have close connections to them well before they officially "pitch.". Not a bad close rate, I'd say--and a pretty great pay day.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

There were prominent founders of business like PriceGrabber, LowerMyBills and MyLife. The team has experience in building startups (Doug Ludlow was formerly a founder in a TechStars company) and have all worked at local Los Angeles based startups. DoubleClick and Amazon and is led by co-founders Jason Lehmbeck and John Zimmerman.

startup 276

startup VC media networking 276

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write this post since September of last year when Brad Feld first wrote about the The Founders Visa Movement. TWTFelipe is the founder of TWTApps , who had developed some really cool add-on applications for Twitter to extend its functionality. university in math or science&# (Thomas Friedman). Crazy, huh?

education 282

education creativity innovation entrepreneurs 282

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 3, 2014

In 2009, I was introduced to Havi Hoffman. It was a great trip, but it also reconnected me with some New Yorkers that I hadn''t seen in a while--namely Chris Muscarella , the co-founder of Kitchensurfing. It''s super interesting to go back and trace connections and relationships that led to new opportunities.

disruption 290

disruption communities innovation enablement 290

Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

During our recent Dreamit Kickoff week, Bullpen Capital Founder and General Partner Paul Martino ( @ahpah ) spoke with our Spring 2020 cohort about the state of the VC ecosystem in the current economic crisis. The founder negotiated with the fund and ultimately accepted a 15% lower price.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

VC has been invested over the past decade according to race, gender and educational background makes for grim reading — with all-ethnic teams and female entrepreneurs receiving just a fraction of available funding versus all-white teams and male founders. A beginner’s guide to diversity, equity and inclusion.

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 14, 2013

It was a happy accident when I got back into NYC VC in 2009 that I just happened to find the Ace Hotel--a space that was really conducive to meetings and founders working on projects. How can they be helped? What about connections to existing businesses?

communities 340

communities coworking spaces economic development funders 340

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. As of near the end of September 2009, we’re up 46% since the March 9th nadir (yes, I need to find a way to use one of my SAT words ; – ).

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

The biggest media attention in our industry went to the so-called “super angels&# during the 2009/10 timeframe and while I don’t believe there is such thing as a super angel I believe that much media attention was deserved. Spawning of Micro VCs. These people understand that the nature of startups have changed.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 334

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 18, 2014

We live in interesting times where working at a startup is glamorized to the point that many founders even refer to their team members as “rock stars,” which to my ears is cringe worthy. We first met five years ago through serendipity as I described in this 2009 blog post and elaborated on again in more detail 2010.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. 5 years ago.

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VC venture capital ventures financing 387

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And people like Jeff Clavier, Aydin Senkut, Dave McClure, Chris Sacca & Eric Paley (at Founder Collective) are leading the charge. Chris Sacca talked about how a $20 million exit can change a founder’s life and that shouldn’t be scoffed at. We picked up activity aggressively in 2009. That’s awesome.

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disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

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. Most firms still have founders involved and they live fund to fund the way startups live customer to customer. It's incredibly rewarding to help people find positions at exciting high growth companies with great founders at the helm.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

This was until about 2009 because most the investments in companies came from one, maybe two, sources. If you’re a solo founder and haven’t built out your team or engineers I’m likely to want 15+%. A founder can decide if they feel that $5 million for a 20% stake in her business is fair or not.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 25, 2021

Kent Gregoire is an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member and founder of Symphony Advantage, which helps CEOs achieve ongoing success through strategic thinking, advice and planning. Example: In 2009, Southwest Airlines decided to go against industry standards that were shifting toward fees for checked luggage.

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capital culture sustainability leadership 278

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JUNE 19, 2024

Contributed to EO by Jordan Gillissie , the founder and CEO of Equifund , an alternative investment platform that provides retail investors with access to emerging companies. Prior to founding Equifund, Jordan founded capital markets consulting and investor relations firm Novea Capital Inc in 2009. and more articles from the EO blog.

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financing finance entrepreneurship mentorship 255

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 30, 2021

She is the founder of Million Dollar Women, a New York City-based social venture, which helps women entrepreneurs scale up their businesses and its nonprofit arm, The Million Dollar Women Fund. and share one mindset or happiness-boosting practice that has worked for you recently. It may just be the most important text you ever send!

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health entrepreneurs entrepreneurship leadership 300

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

But it will be patiently deployed, waiting for a cohort of founders who aren’t artificially clinging to 2021 valuation metrics. In 2009 we could take a long time to review a deal. What is a VC To Do? I can’t speak for every VC, obviously. But the way we see it is that in venture right now you have 2 choices?—?super

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TechCrunch

MARCH 28, 2023

It offers information on loans and grants and is accompanied by a quiz that provides specialized answers for founders regarding their capital needs and wants for expanding their businesses. The Tory Burch Foundation, which was launched in 2009 by fashion designer Tory Burch, has a long history of supporting women entrepreneurs.

capital 94

capital founder education startup ecosystem 94

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 15, 2012

Parker made a huge dent in the web as co-founder of Napster, then built Plaxo up to 20 million users. He spotted Facebook in 2004 and Spotify in 2009. What I do care about is that a person who is long on vision and has a knack for being around big companies early on is now living in New York City.

startup 278

startup financing finance venture capital 278

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

As more consumers were skipping commercials the idea of authentically integrating brands into media seemed obvious to me and ended up informing a lot of my investments in 2009 and 2010. He reached out to younger founders and offered to help via his network at AT&T, Google, media agencies … you name it. I stayed close.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Equally silly were people insisting that founders use convertible notes but we funded a few of those, too. .” But since it was equally silly for me to fight, seed rounds they became.

VC 399

VC advice financing finance 399

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

But they weren’t there in 2009 when you were up late nights shitting yourself whether you really were smart for pursuing this idea. I talked to the founder about this and he said, “I’m not looking for a ‘holiday bump’ – it may come, it may not. I agreed to finance a company today.

advice 391

advice VC financing finance 391

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 19, 2012

4/19/2009 – Still an agency. 12/11/2009 – Slight tweak: Now you use our tools to control your social media. Our engaging social app-vertisements —games, quizzes and contests— create social brand loyalty. We help brands to engage their audiences by extending their advertising campaigns into the social world.

media 281

media networking social gaming SaaS 281

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

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. It helped me avoid chasing deals (and a house) in 2007/08 and it led to GRP’s fastest pace of investment in many years in the first three quarters of 2009 at a time when many others weren’t investing.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

Chris Dixon made the point that he thinks investors should look for the founders to have the domain knowledge rather than them having domain knowledge themselves. But while I prefer a certain naive optimism in founders I can’t see the logic that this extends to angel investors.

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2016

Second, we have more to offer founders. The founders that are going to make your career aren't the ones that everyone knows already, inviting to all the best parties. Last year, I got to back a founder that I first met ten years ago when I was an analyst at Union Square Ventures. You're going to wind up failing a lot.

venture capital 283

venture capital strategy investment investing 283

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Ironically enough, the second nudge she gave my career also had to do with AOL--ten years later when in 2009, she introduced me to Jon Brod who was forming AOL Ventures. If you know of a newly minted founder whose network could use some additional investors, please make a suggestion in the comments.

data analysis 298

data analysis venture capital communities entrepreneurs 298

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MARCH 17, 2021

A fantastic example is Demis Hassabis, co-founder of the machine learning AI lab DeepMind. In 2009 he went to Silicon Valley to find seed investors. We maintain that there is every bit as much scope for originality at this stage as there is in trying to find a breakthrough idea in the first place. 2 for his age group at 12.

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Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 16, 2024

When Marc and I started the firm in 2009, the conventional wisdom in Venture Capital was that in any given year, only 15 companies would ever generate $100M in revenue and those 15 companies would drive almost all of VC returns. I am pleased to announce that we have just raised $7.2B This marks an important milestone for us.

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venture capital networking health VC 144

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. You don’t have the founders of eBay, LinkedIn, Salesforce.com and Yahoo. You don’t. Get over it.

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