Expert insights. Personalized for you.
There’s a lot of excitement going on this weekend—and while many of my readers are undoubtedly excited about a new President, and our first female Vice-President, undoubtedly even more people are just breathing a sigh of relief. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, you had to be routing for a peaceful end to the election season—or even just an end. We spent a lot of money, effort and emotion on it all, and many are celebrating a win. But what’s next? We see that in the startup world, too. MORE
Recently, NYC Mayoral Candidate Andrew Yang got asked about raising income taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers. He opposed such a measure to close the city and state’s budget gap, worrying that New Yorkers will leave because of tax increases. That’s not surprising. Yang himself left the city when the pandemic hit, moving up to his home in New Paltz. It’s a move that many other New Yorkers did and I can’t blame them. MORE
In February of 2017, Susan Fowler’s description of the pervasive cultural issues at Uber, after the company’s abject failure to address her sexual harassment complaints properly, finally broke through in a way that garnered the tech community’s appropriate attention. MORE
I remember looking at other people on the street the day after 9/11. Everyone was just so sad. It was a shared moment in time where nothing needed to be said, and all we could muster was a slight nod to acknowledge that what you were feeling, everyone else was feeling, too. It felt like things would never be the same. Yet, it wasn’t very long after before I was on a plane. Sure, I was a bit apprehensive, but slowly it faded away. MORE
Talk to ten founders and ten different VCs and you’ll get roughly about 600 different suggestions as to how you should go about your fundraising strategy. I don’t know what the formula is here, but the numbers and the resulting amount of confusion gets big very very quickly. MORE
There’s been an emergence of “pre-accelorator” or “people accelorator” programs—experiences that you can buy your way into with cash, as opposed to potentially valuable future equity, that replicate the education and network provided by the likes of YCombinator. MORE
I don’t really have a particular goal with this post. I’m just sharing. When I started leading deals at First Round Capital, I sourced investments in 8 companies. GroupMe, Singleplatform and Backupify all had really good exits, especially if you’re just looking at the multiples of the pre-seed/seed rounds, which is what I’m focused on now. I found GroupMe at the Techcrunch Disrupt Hackathon. MORE
There have been a lot of calls for VC firms to make more hires from the Black and Brown community, as well as to hire more women. Not all hires, however, are made equally. In venture, it’s all about getting an opportunity to make partner and being included in the carry—the economic upside of a fund. MORE
I see this time and time again—a founder pitches a VC or an angel and they say to come back when there’s more traction. The founder then goes off and raises from friends and family or invests their own savings in the idea in an attempt to come back with a handful of customer or users. MORE
While we don’t have kids yet, we’re of the age where a lot of our friends do—and the back to school situation is on everyone’s mind. Is your school open? Are you sending them? How did your kids do with distance learning? MORE
Fundraising takes a long time. I’m a female founder. I don’t have a technical co-founder. I don’t have enough traction. These are all of the things I heard from a founder that I recently backed. She was pitching for a pre-seed round of $400k. MORE
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.” MORE
Ever meet someone and something feels… off? It could be any number of things—like someone’s being overly transactional or that they’re just not being upfront. MORE
VCs are notorious for kicking tires. VCs take a meeting just to learn about an area. If deal flow is slow, a VC will take a meeting if you and your team seem mildly interesting even if your product isn’t. MORE
The science is clear… and so are the economics. MORE
Let’s establish two things right off the bat: One, the Coronavirus Pandemic is a global tragedy that has already cost us far too many lives and create economic devastation. Two, if you are lucky, you are still being paid to do a job—a job that, for founders, marketers and sales teams, means connecting with customers during a terrible health crisis and a recession. What’s a company to do with their marketing? MORE
The other day, I was talking to a highly experienced female professional out raising money. It was super clear to me that she was incredibly qualified to tackle the problems that she was raising money to go after—but few people in the ecosystem knew who she was compared to other, more high profile professionals. There were other people who spend more time on social, doing the podcasts, videos and interviews—things that, while brand building, opened them up to more criticism. MORE
Reports of NYC’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Far from becoming a crime-ridden hellscape, NYC’s actual numbers of murders and robberies are on a pace that is not only down from 10 years ago, which was eight years into Mike Bloomberg’s term as Mayor, but they’re almost half as much as they were at the end of the Giuliani administration, when people thought NYC crime had been "cleaned up". Our current coronavirus case counts make us one of the safest cities to be in the entire country. MORE
In June of 2019, I got a cold e-mail with a single link: “My name is Braeden Kelekona and I’m the founder of Kelekona, a drone service for passengers and cargo. Below is a link to the pitch video. I look forward to hearing back from you and hopefully scheduling a meeting here in the city.” MORE
One of the most difficult conversations I have with founders is when they haven’t quite given me enough of a story for me to make a proper evaluation. A VC’s default is “no”, so without enough information to be convincing, it’s going to wind up being a pass. If I wind up asking for more info, it might result in a founder feeling like they’re getting the runaround, given what the founder believes to be an obviously good idea. MORE
One thing I’ve seen from both VCs and LPs over the past week is a hesitation to engage around race discussions. There are some who don’t believe they’ve done anything “wrong” and therefore see the whole thing as a distraction. Others are so uncomfortable with the idea of getting flamed or canceled despite good intentions that they’d rather do the absolute minimum. If you’re a white professional in venture, you might feel uncomfortable tweeting or blogging about race. MORE
Across the world, various economic development organizations, government agencies, and non-profits are putting in admirable and well-intentioned efforts to develop startup ecosystems. They’re building campuses, districts, buildings, spaces, as well as running new educational efforts and contests—basically anything they can think of to foster the growth of new and innovative companies. One thing they’re spending very little time on could wind up being the reason why all of these efforts dry up. MORE
The other day, my wife Aja Singer and I were having a conversation about being more intentional with our time, especially when it comes to working. MORE
I got asked by a reporter yesterday what I thought about WeWork’s IPO situation and I’ll summarize what I said here: First off, let’s pull back for a moment and acknowledge that WeWork has built a huge company that generates a ton of value for its members. Real estate was previously a huge headache for small businesses before WeWork made co-working mainstream. I don’t know where its valuation will wind up, but I believe that there is a going concern there that is worth billions of dollars. MORE
In almost every single investment I’ve ever made, I can think of a singular moment in my relationship with a founder that, no matter what came before or what might come after, defined our relationship. Often times, it came in a very vulnerable and down moment for the founder—perhaps they just lost out on a big opportunity, had someone from the team leave, or they’re running low on capital before sales have come around. MORE
Fund investing, like adulting, is boring. That’s the first thing anyone trying to raise a fund needs to understand, as well as anyone thinking about investing in one. The partner at the fund, the VC, gets to do the fun part—the meeting with founders, vetting deals, negotiating, helping, etc. MORE
Every election cycle, you hear the same thing—Republicans are good for the economy and electing a liberal will tank it. This is especially the case this time around as we’re in the middle of the longest running expansion this country has ever seen—and no one wants the other shoe to drop. There’s a lot of fear that making the wrong choice will mess things up. MORE
Obviously, the fight against Coronavirus has not stopped, but it’s hard not to look ahead to what’s next. How will having the world on lockdown affect our society in the long run? Here are a few trends I think we’ll see going forward: 1) Work from home is here to stay—at least partially. MORE
The answer is easier than you thought: Anything you want. No, seriously—that’s the perk of running your own business. You select your salary. Now, if you want to have investors and potentially maximize growth for the company, that’s a different story. Investors are going to want their investment dollars to be going towards growth than going directly into your pocket—but what does that mean for how much you can actually pay yourself. MORE
Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , the pre-seed and seed stage VC fund I run in NYC, has invested in 64 companies in the last six and a half years. Twenty-five of them have at least one female co-founder. Fifteen had co-founders over 40. Five have LGBTQ+ founders. Three teams have African-American founders. Three of the founding teams are married couples. All were backed based on the sole criteria that they had the potential to make my limited partners a lot of money. MORE
This is my daughter, Mirren. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Charlie O'Donnell - VC (@ceonyc) She’s the best. She was born 10 weeks early, on Labor Day, and like startups never are, has performed up and to the right nearly every single day that she’s been alive. We are incredibly lucky that she’s doing so well and we hope to have her home at the end of the month. MORE
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.”
This is going to be BIG.
NOVEMBER 15, 2020
In February of 2017, Susan Fowler’s description of the pervasive cultural issues at Uber, after the company’s abject failure to address her sexual harassment complaints properly, finally broke through in a way that garnered the tech community’s appropriate attention.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 22, 2018
In almost every single investment I’ve ever made, I can think of a singular moment in my relationship with a founder that, no matter what came before or what might come after, defined our relationship. Often times, it came in a very vulnerable and down moment for the founder—perhaps they just lost out on a big opportunity, had someone from the team leave, or they’re running low on capital before sales have come around.
This is going to be BIG.
JANUARY 31, 2021
There’s been an emergence of “pre-accelorator” or “people accelorator” programs—experiences that you can buy your way into with cash, as opposed to potentially valuable future equity, that replicate the education and network provided by the likes of YCombinator.
Speaker: Patrick Dempsey and Andrew Erpelding of ZoomInfo
What is ZoomInfo for Recruiters? Find and connect with the right talent to fill roles fast with more data, basic search, advanced search, candidate and company profiles, and export results. Watch this On-Demand Webinar today to see how ZoomInfo for Recruiters can work to get your talented candidates results.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 21, 2021
Fundraising takes a long time. I’m a female founder. I don’t have a technical co-founder. I don’t have enough traction. These are all of the things I heard from a founder that I recently backed. She was pitching for a pre-seed round of $400k.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 13, 2020
Obviously, the fight against Coronavirus has not stopped, but it’s hard not to look ahead to what’s next. How will having the world on lockdown affect our society in the long run? Here are a few trends I think we’ll see going forward: 1) Work from home is here to stay—at least partially.
This is going to be BIG.
AUGUST 30, 2020
Talk to ten founders and ten different VCs and you’ll get roughly about 600 different suggestions as to how you should go about your fundraising strategy. I don’t know what the formula is here, but the numbers and the resulting amount of confusion gets big very very quickly.
This is going to be BIG.
DECEMBER 3, 2020
Fund investing, like adulting, is boring. That’s the first thing anyone trying to raise a fund needs to understand, as well as anyone thinking about investing in one. The partner at the fund, the VC, gets to do the fun part—the meeting with founders, vetting deals, negotiating, helping, etc.
This is going to be BIG.
JULY 29, 2021
The science is clear… and so are the economics.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
In 2021, as companies continue to move more functions online, employees will take a more virtual -- and flexible -- mindset and lifestyle in parallel to the digitization of businesses. To succeed, you must change the way you conceive and build new products as a digital business. Download the report today to discover more!
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This is going to be BIG.
MAY 4, 2021
In June of 2019, I got a cold e-mail with a single link: “My name is Braeden Kelekona and I’m the founder of Kelekona, a drone service for passengers and cargo. Below is a link to the pitch video. I look forward to hearing back from you and hopefully scheduling a meeting here in the city.”
This is going to be BIG.
MAY 10, 2020
VCs are notorious for kicking tires. VCs take a meeting just to learn about an area. If deal flow is slow, a VC will take a meeting if you and your team seem mildly interesting even if your product isn’t.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 12, 2020
I don’t really have a particular goal with this post. I’m just sharing. When I started leading deals at First Round Capital, I sourced investments in 8 companies. GroupMe, Singleplatform and Backupify all had really good exits, especially if you’re just looking at the multiples of the pre-seed/seed rounds, which is what I’m focused on now. I found GroupMe at the Techcrunch Disrupt Hackathon.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 18, 2019
Across the world, various economic development organizations, government agencies, and non-profits are putting in admirable and well-intentioned efforts to develop startup ecosystems. They’re building campuses, districts, buildings, spaces, as well as running new educational efforts and contests—basically anything they can think of to foster the growth of new and innovative companies. One thing they’re spending very little time on could wind up being the reason why all of these efforts dry up.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
In our 24-criterion evaluation of B2B marketing data providers, we identified the 11 most significant vendors — Data Axle, Dun & Bradstreet, Enlyft, Global Database, InsideView, Leadspace, Oracle, SMARTe, Spiceworks Ziff Davis, TechTarget, and ZoomInfo Technologies — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps B2B marketing professionals select the right one for their needs.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 22, 2020
I remember looking at other people on the street the day after 9/11. Everyone was just so sad. It was a shared moment in time where nothing needed to be said, and all we could muster was a slight nod to acknowledge that what you were feeling, everyone else was feeling, too. It felt like things would never be the same. Yet, it wasn’t very long after before I was on a plane. Sure, I was a bit apprehensive, but slowly it faded away.
This is going to be BIG.
JANUARY 3, 2021
The other day, my wife Aja Singer and I were having a conversation about being more intentional with our time, especially when it comes to working.
This is going to be BIG.
AUGUST 24, 2020
Reports of NYC’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Far from becoming a crime-ridden hellscape, NYC’s actual numbers of murders and robberies are on a pace that is not only down from 10 years ago, which was eight years into Mike Bloomberg’s term as Mayor, but they’re almost half as much as they were at the end of the Giuliani administration, when people thought NYC crime had been "cleaned up". Our current coronavirus case counts make us one of the safest cities to be in the entire country.
This is going to be BIG.
JANUARY 27, 2020
Every election cycle, you hear the same thing—Republicans are good for the economy and electing a liberal will tank it. This is especially the case this time around as we’re in the middle of the longest running expansion this country has ever seen—and no one wants the other shoe to drop. There’s a lot of fear that making the wrong choice will mess things up.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
Over the last two years, there’s been a 76 percent increase in AI adoption across sales organizations. For sales teams, AI opens up a world of new possibilities, including automating outreach, identifying best-fit buyers, and keeping CRMs flush with fresh data. Read on to learn the four AI hacks sales teams need to improve their performance. Download the eBook today!
This is going to be BIG.
NOVEMBER 7, 2020
There’s a lot of excitement going on this weekend—and while many of my readers are undoubtedly excited about a new President, and our first female Vice-President, undoubtedly even more people are just breathing a sigh of relief. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, you had to be routing for a peaceful end to the election season—or even just an end. We spent a lot of money, effort and emotion on it all, and many are celebrating a win. But what’s next? We see that in the startup world, too.
This is going to be BIG.
JUNE 22, 2020
One of the most difficult conversations I have with founders is when they haven’t quite given me enough of a story for me to make a proper evaluation. A VC’s default is “no”, so without enough information to be convincing, it’s going to wind up being a pass. If I wind up asking for more info, it might result in a founder feeling like they’re getting the runaround, given what the founder believes to be an obviously good idea.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 14, 2021
Ever meet someone and something feels… off? It could be any number of things—like someone’s being overly transactional or that they’re just not being upfront.
This is going to be BIG.
JUNE 15, 2020
There have been a lot of calls for VC firms to make more hires from the Black and Brown community, as well as to hire more women. Not all hires, however, are made equally. In venture, it’s all about getting an opportunity to make partner and being included in the carry—the economic upside of a fund.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
CRM software is a powerful tool when used correctly, yet another obstacle to a sales team’s efficiency when it’s not. Leveraging research and commentary from industry analysts, this eBook explores how your sales team can get back valuable time by overcoming some pain points with your CRM, such as low adoption rates, integrations, and data quality.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 3, 2020
I see this time and time again—a founder pitches a VC or an angel and they say to come back when there’s more traction. The founder then goes off and raises from friends and family or invests their own savings in the idea in an attempt to come back with a handful of customer or users.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 1, 2020
Let’s establish two things right off the bat: One, the Coronavirus Pandemic is a global tragedy that has already cost us far too many lives and create economic devastation. Two, if you are lucky, you are still being paid to do a job—a job that, for founders, marketers and sales teams, means connecting with customers during a terrible health crisis and a recession. What’s a company to do with their marketing?
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 4, 2021
Recently, NYC Mayoral Candidate Andrew Yang got asked about raising income taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers. He opposed such a measure to close the city and state’s budget gap, worrying that New Yorkers will leave because of tax increases. That’s not surprising. Yang himself left the city when the pandemic hit, moving up to his home in New Paltz. It’s a move that many other New Yorkers did and I can’t blame them.
This is going to be BIG.
JANUARY 24, 2021
The other day, I was talking to a highly experienced female professional out raising money. It was super clear to me that she was incredibly qualified to tackle the problems that she was raising money to go after—but few people in the ecosystem knew who she was compared to other, more high profile professionals. There were other people who spend more time on social, doing the podcasts, videos and interviews—things that, while brand building, opened them up to more criticism.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
Fact: Good data lives at the core of every successful B2B demand generation strategy. Without quality data, it’s nearly impossible to identify and segment your target audience and create messaging that speaks to their values and interests. Whether you’re stepping into a new position or you’re new to demand generation, learning the tricks of the trade can be, well, tricky. In this eBook, you’ll discover how to improve your demand generation program—and your bottom line.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 18, 2019
Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , the pre-seed and seed stage VC fund I run in NYC, has invested in 64 companies in the last six and a half years. Twenty-five of them have at least one female co-founder. Fifteen had co-founders over 40. Five have LGBTQ+ founders. Three teams have African-American founders. Three of the founding teams are married couples. All were backed based on the sole criteria that they had the potential to make my limited partners a lot of money.
This is going to be BIG.
JUNE 9, 2020
One thing I’ve seen from both VCs and LPs over the past week is a hesitation to engage around race discussions. There are some who don’t believe they’ve done anything “wrong” and therefore see the whole thing as a distraction. Others are so uncomfortable with the idea of getting flamed or canceled despite good intentions that they’d rather do the absolute minimum. If you’re a white professional in venture, you might feel uncomfortable tweeting or blogging about race.
This is going to be BIG.
SEPTEMBER 6, 2019
I got asked by a reporter yesterday what I thought about WeWork’s IPO situation and I’ll summarize what I said here: First off, let’s pull back for a moment and acknowledge that WeWork has built a huge company that generates a ton of value for its members. Real estate was previously a huge headache for small businesses before WeWork made co-working mainstream. I don’t know where its valuation will wind up, but I believe that there is a going concern there that is worth billions of dollars.
This is going to be BIG.
AUGUST 9, 2020
While we don’t have kids yet, we’re of the age where a lot of our friends do—and the back to school situation is on everyone’s mind. Is your school open? Are you sending them? How did your kids do with distance learning?
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
The evolution of every high-functioning, effective customer success strategy centers around three C’s: connected experiences, an engaging customer journey, and a culture built on customer-centricity. Satisfaction won’t cut it. Quarterbacking your customers to long-term success and growth is proven to combat churn and transform customer success teams into revenue-drivers. But where do you start? Download the playbook today!
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 24, 2020
The answer is easier than you thought: Anything you want. No, seriously—that’s the perk of running your own business. You select your salary. Now, if you want to have investors and potentially maximize growth for the company, that’s a different story. Investors are going to want their investment dollars to be going towards growth than going directly into your pocket—but what does that mean for how much you can actually pay yourself.
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