Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. 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. They sponsor TWiVC. BlockChalk.

VC 214

VC founder advice ventures 214

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” Helping companies get to next financing round successfully: I was just beginning this phase in Sept 2010 and said so. “Ok, so this guy can write a blog and source deals but can he make any money?” Since then?

VC 387

VC venture capital ventures financing 387

Haystack

JANUARY 18, 2020

Having spent time around and then in the world of VC in the Bay Area during the last decade, I’ve been reflecting on how different norms in the industry have changed. At the start of 2010, there was some unwritten VC industry conventions that have been tested, challenged, and upended in the last decade.

VC 130

VC construction strategy investing 130

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 17, 2014

In 2010, I funded his company, Backupify , which has gone on to raise over $19 million in funding and is set to have their best year of revenue to date. We just hung out in a small group of nobodies, having chatted a bit through our respective blogs before. I can''t guarantee you''ll sell something, win VC dollars, go viral, etc.

communities 298

communities VC accelerator startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

We haven’t hit that wall yet for three reasons: 1) not enough elapsed time, 2) the VC market is frenzied now, too and 3) we haven’t seen a market downturn since the volume picked up. But I’ll judge the angel class of 2009/2010 on a 7-10 year time horizon. I was very active in 2009 / early 2010.

angel investing 299

angel investing investment investing real estate 299

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

This blog post is not about debating if "enough" diverse founders get funding--whatever that might mean. When Chantel asked investors for $3mm for her seed round back in 2010, people stood up and took notice. VCs don't go later and angels don't go earlier. Ask them for an intro to a VC. Venture investing is hard.

advice 418

advice founder pitching VC 418

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

Finally, a lot of people asking me about typos on my blog. Peer-to-peer lending service; started on FaceBook; claim to own 79% of the US peer lending market in March 2010 with a whopping $8,664,750. Blogging has gone through many iterations. I use Wordpress for this blog and it’s great. LendingClub. It sucked.

venture capital 265

venture capital peer-to-peer capital ventures 265

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2012

It all started in 2010 with Klout. From this debate about Klout John and I have had a series of in person meetings and debates about our industry (both VC & tech) and what is changing. And ff Venture Capital cleverly has created a blog where their portofolio companies contribute. 2:00 Why don’t you like the term VC?

venture capital 303

venture capital VC ventures capital 303

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

On Losing in VC. I decided to put both of those issues to bed in 2010. I know I won’t win every deal I want to in VC. There are other great VC’s in SoCal and there is always the allure of the NorCal guys flying down and talking about how they invested in Google, Facebook, Yahoo!

consulting 333

consulting advice collaboration VC 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

On Losing in VC. I decided to put both of those issues to bed in 2010. I know I won’t win every deal I want to in VC. There are other great VC’s in SoCal and there is always the allure of the NorCal guys flying down and talking about how they invested in Google, Facebook, Yahoo!

consulting 328

consulting advice collaboration VC 328

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. There are a lot of things I think entrepreneurs should care about when raising from a VC: How big or small their fund is? Beezer did.

entrepreneurs 237

entrepreneurs VC mentorship strategy 237

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

Anyone who reads this blog frequently will know that I am a big believer in low-cost video content and specifically the power of YouTube as a content creation & distribution platform. Our industry just took one big step towards legitimacy with the hiring of renowned media exec Ynon Kreiz to run Maker Studios. billion deal to Disney.

peer-to-peer 320

peer-to-peer media networking board 320

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 28, 2010

Recently I wrote a blog post about how I hated losing, but I embrace it as a way to learn, improve and increase my win rates. One of the things I learned from my “post-game analysis&# is that you’re most vulnerable right after you’ve won the deal. I won, that is, until I lost.

consulting 309

consulting advice VC support 309

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

TechCrunch ran my article yesterday as a guest post but I wanted to have a copy here for anybody who missed it and for future readers of this blog. I had finally appeared on the front cover of a magazine (TornadoInsider – then the top European VC magazine) but I felt so fat in the picture I never sent it to anybody.

entrepreneurs 308

entrepreneurs advice real estate venture capital 308

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

I commented briefly on his blog and made a mental note to write a blog post. 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. They would invent many more jobs than they would supplant.

education 282

education creativity innovation entrepreneurs 282

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 5, 2010

Given how much progress they’ve made since last year I look forward to tracking them and seeing where they end up by the end of 2010. It’s always great to meet somebody in person that you’ve interacted with on blogs and on Twitter. Tags: Tech Market Analysis VC Industry.

education 254

education pitching VC media 254

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2012

Fred Wilson wrote two posts in 2010 that were very influential with the startup community. ” Part of the beauty of blogging that in two sittings Fred was able to influence what was built over the next 12 months. The titles were: Mobile First, Web Second. Mobile First, Web Second (continued). My wife showed it to me.

real estate 334

real estate strategy development enablement 334

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 14, 2019

Tumblr was both a blogging platform and a social media application and while I always loved the versatility of the platform, native mobile applications benefit from simplicity, not complexity. There was a time around 2010 and 2011 when Tumblr was the most engaging social platform that I was on.

media 201

media investing investment development 201

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2010

And coming to the end of 2010 I feel a sense of reminiscence of some of the trends from a decade ago. I was reminded of all this this when I read a blog post by one of my favorite thinkers on the VC market, Bryce Roberts, who talked about “ unfundable companies.&#.

consulting 302

consulting leadership entrepreneurs advice 302

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

Seth Levine of Foundry Group addresses this important topic this morning on his blog with a post, “ Has Convertible Debt Won ?&# In frothy markets (like we’re seeing in August 2010) this happens more frequently. Seth was basing this on a Tweet by Paul Graham that said&#. “Convertible notes have won.

finance 319

finance financing entrepreneurs advice 319

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 1, 2019

I wrote a blog post about this topic in November 2010 that has become one of the most searched on and referenced AVC posts of all time. The numbers in that blog post are long out of date and so I now have a popup on it warning people not to use those numbers. The reality is that these multipliers differ from market to market.

startup 79

startup entrepreneurship 79

Founders Coop

MAY 18, 2020

As operators, we were lucky to raise from some pretty amazing VC role models, people like Brad Feld at Foundry Group, Ethan Kurzweil at Bessemer Venture Partners, and Karan Mehandru at Trinity Ventures. But along the way we experienced many of the behaviors Fred’s post talks about, so we know how awful the experience of raising VC can be.

founder 140

founder VC ventures investing 140

David Teten VC

APRIL 13, 2021

Greycroft in 2010 also had an experienced team, but didn’t either. Similarly, Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund highlights in her blog how she personally completed 345 meetings in a nine-month period for the firm’s first $11.5 Emerging managers are not a commodity, especially in VC. Fundraising hacks for VC and private equity funds.

peer-to-peer 98

peer-to-peer venture capital VC networking 98

Haystack

JULY 20, 2018

I have been reading Fred’s blog AVC for about a decade now. I sort of feel mentored by Fred via his blog, which is pretty remarkable for just writing words on the web and sharing them. Of course, over the last decade, the rest of the world doesn’t need to read these blogs to see what’s going on. A blog entry for another day.

investment 116

investment investing venture capital peer-to-peer 116

Haystack

JANUARY 12, 2020

For those following this blog and the seed market over the past decade, you may have noticed that every year, we see increases across the board — more investors, newer funds, and funds that get larger. Rather, this short blog is filled only with my own observations from being in the middle of the evolving seed market since 2013.

peer-to-peer 106

peer-to-peer opportunity board VC 106

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

A great recent example of this was a successful group of entrepreneurs who had created a company that will do $10-12 million in revenue at their system integration business (read: services business) in 2011 after having done $5 million or so in 2010 and $2-3 million in 2009. Why Shouldn’t Most Services Businesses Raise VC?

VC 332

VC advice finance financing 332

OurCrowd

JUNE 20, 2021

Venture investment in renewables has soared as global investment in energy transition more than doubled from $235 billion in 2010 to $501 billion in 2020, according to Bloomberg NEF. The post Green Energy Makes Business Sense appeared first on OurCrowd Blog. Exciting Opportunities.

energy 41

energy incubation accelerator investing 41

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 5, 2015

In 2010, Foursquare hit it big in Austin not long after their funding, which I accidently kicked off with a blog post. You know the only answer VC''s should feel qualified to give on this one? I might even say that the Meerkat funding is peak VC for this cycle. I''m 5''11'''', thank you. How tall is Nick, anyway?

VC 301

VC venture capital technology networking 301

David Teten VC

APRIL 13, 2021

Greycroft in 2010 also had an experienced team, but didn’t either. Similarly, Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund highlights in her blog how she personally completed 345 meetings in a nine-month period for the firm’s first $11.5 Emerging managers are not a commodity, especially in VC. Fundraising hacks for VC and private equity funds.

peer-to-peer 45

peer-to-peer venture capital VC networking 45

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 29, 2019

As I’ve been working on a new design and approach to this blog/newsletter , I have been diving into the analytics to understand what all of you are doing with it. The top 50 blog posts of all time are an interesting bunch. Most of them have been written in the last five years, but there are a few that go back to 2009 and 2010.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 29, 2010

You’d much rather be a VC, but you’re smart enough to know that there are like 8 junior VC positions open a year, so you’re looking for a backup.) Even better would be additional links to your blog and Twitter. So you just finished up the year at Harvard/Wharton/Stanford/NYU, etc. This person has no ideas about this industry.

startup 385

startup opportunity networking VC 385

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 15, 2021

Carried interest means the share of the profits that the managers of VC funds get (and PE funds and Hedge funds too). For many years, there have been attempts to tax carried interest as ordinary income and those efforts have been fought tenaciously and successfully by the VC, PE, and Hedge Fund industries.

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capital VC 260