Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

There’s a quick litmus-test conversation any early-stage VC will have with the founder and it’s one that you should be as prepared for as your elevator pitch. It goes something like this … VC: “How much money are you raising?” Founder: “$8–10 million” VC: “What’s your current burn rate?” Founder: “$250k / month.”

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David Teten VC

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

Versatile VC is hosting a one-hour interactive webinar on Thursday, September 28, at noon EST. We’ll discuss Versatile VC ‘s strategy, how we see the market, and some of the opportunities we think are exciting. Our team has a history of investing in diverse and underrepresented founders.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

AUGUST 16, 2023

What advice would you give your past self? Most founders I speak to agree that the startup journey is generally discouraging, overrun with unsolvable challenges and many many mistakes. I posed a question to twenty-one other founders, across many different industries from media to finance, from SaaS to urban farming.

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 23, 2012

I'm often the last one to leave an event, held back by the most persistant of entrepreneurs trying to squeeze as much advice as they can out of me. I have one failed attempt at a startup under my belt as a founder and I don't have any particularly usable skills that anyone would pay for like selling, designing, building, etc.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

If you haven’t yet heard about Female Founder Office Hours it is an initiative you should be aware of whether you’re male, female or any other gender identify. For the LA event, for example, they will not only have a selection of great LA VCs but also 10+ senior VC women from the SF Bay Area will be coming down for it.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” The narrative of this discussion is something like this: I meet a 35-40-year-old founder with two kids and mortgage.

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David Teten VC

JULY 27, 2021

We have collected a wide range of freebies, contests, accelerators, online communities, and VCs designed for student tech founders. I have been researching this both to support Versatile VC ’s portfolio companies and also as part of research for my new book, To University and Beyond: Launch Your Career in High Gear. Right here.

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Jason Malki

MARCH 9, 2023

I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Sheffield, the Founder & Managing Partner of Pachamama Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in US early-stage climate tech companies. Then, I stumbled upon PE/VC after chatting with a good college buddy of mine. What is your advice for someone trying to break into tech investing?

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. It’s not uncommon for a VC to ask you how much capital you’ve raised and what the post-money valuation was on your last round. So why does a VC ask you?

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll ever get I’m about to offer you some fund-raising advice that flies directly in the face of what most conventional wisdom will tell you. So what does a VC do when he or she isn’t ready to say “no” or perhaps might like to talk with you in a year but not now?

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 23, 2018

I've seen this so many times over: A founder pitches a VC, or several of them, and then they come back from that process with all sorts of new strategy goals or worries that they need to be doing something differently. Any advice they have for you is going to be a bit broken. If it was, you'd run it very differently.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Picking a VC is hard. So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. Most VCs are book smart. VCs should be more of a coach than proscriptively telling you what to do. You want a VC who will spar with you but then STFU and let you get on with things.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 29, 2021

Edtech needs to reach beyond underfunded public school systems to become more sustainable, which is why more investors and founders are focusing on lifelong learning. Jan Lynn-Matern , founder and partner, Emerge Education (a leading edtech seed fund in Europe with portfolio companies like Aula, Unibuddy and BibliU). citizenship!

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

And so, generally, the people who invested in tech companies — the traditional venture investors — could tap their extended talent networks and apply their knowledge to bring talented people into startups, or at least coach the founders on how to select the right talent to scale and grow. It’s a great time to be a founder.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2018

The responses I got came at a time when I've been having a lot of conversations with female founders as well about their fundraising experiences. At this moment, I'm in the process of backing three companies that have at least one female founder and I just finished a round for a black female founder in December. Ducks head.]

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. And my friend and Invoca co-founder Colin Kelley has done both.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

If you’re an entrepreneur who would like to see this clause in more startups please ask your VC to include it in future term sheets and link to it from their home page. “We I have seen in your 5 years with us countless hours dedicated to mentorship and advice to younger founders of color and showing them a roadmap for success.

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TechCrunch

MAY 15, 2023

If a VC has experience in a different field, it may not translate well — if at all — to a startup, and advice around certain business decisions could quickly become outdated. There is a growing group of VC funds led by folks who think they might be better suited to back companies because they are currently startup founders themselves.

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Startup Grind

AUGUST 15, 2018

He has worked with several startups, invested in companies like Mayvenn, Gimlet Media, Blavity, Airspace Technologies, Codeverse, and many others Pitch your startup for a chance to meet with Cross Culture VC Q&A: What is your / your fund's mission? Who is one your founders you think we should watch? BUILD and EXECUTE!

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 26, 2021

According to Sean McDermott, founder and CEO of RedMonocle, CISOs should meet executives where they are. So much so, Lightspeed Ventures handed the startup a term sheet even though its founders weren’t looking to raise. “You already know why cybersecurity investment is essential to your role.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

This is part of a series of advice for founders who need to raise money from venture capitalists. The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. This is where most founders err. Same with VC.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

There are an estimated 100,000 Italians already living in London, attracting the likes of Riccardo Zacconi, co-founder of King.com (maker of Candy Crush) and Simon Beckerman of social shopping app Depop. The good news: VC funding in Italy has grown. It has an estimated 67 VC funds, with 18 of them started since 2015.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

JUNE 21, 2022

You’ll receive the best practical startup advice straight to your inbox every week. In this week’s edition, we discuss: Approaching the funding raising process from a VCs point of view The future of cryptocurrency in 2022 Is your side hustle profitable or a waste of time? That way, you can anticipate questions that a VC might ask.

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Founder Bounty

DECEMBER 19, 2022

Not only is it damn hard - you guys have to know what not to waste your time on since your busy founders and what to waste your time on. Having been in touch with top tier VC's for pre seed and seed these are the best ones. I have been through the fundraising process. So here it is.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 14, 2024

Over a decade ago, when I was working for First Round Capital, we opened our doors for “Open Office Hours”—a series of open meetings where any founder could come in and chat with us for 20 minutes each. I’m not sure we backed any of the founders—but that wasn’t the point. We met quite a few smart folks. We had 70 investors sign up!

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Haystack

SEPTEMBER 16, 2018

As lines of code continue to proliferate through the world, as the rate of startup formation increases to seize those opportunities, and as the VC industry expands to support those new teams and opportunities, there is no shortage of people to visit for advice — not to mention all the resources online.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 31, 2022

A great VC will do so much more for you than just write a check. VCs should never give armchair product advice nor cross the line into micromanagement. The best founder and VC relationships are based on trust and partnership; it should be a relationship that’s nonjudgmental, supportive, and constructive.

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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. We had Farb Nivi , who is the founder & CEO of Grockit , a website that enables online group learning. Farb is the founder & CEO of Grockit.com. OTHER DEALS: 1.

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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. It’s best known for its fellowship program that provides education grants, networking opportunities and business advice to women entrepreneurs.

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TechCrunch

JUNE 7, 2021

David Teten is founder of Versatile VC and writes periodically at teten.com and @dteten. How to win consulting, board and deal roles with PE and VC funds. 5 innovative fundraising methods for emerging VCs and PEs. Hey, founders between gigs: What now? If you want outside capital, VCs will chase after you to invest.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

In the scuffle, VCs are turning to scouts to do the legwork, but that has meant being yet another step removed from their founders. I’ve sat at both sides of the table as a founder and a VC, and I understand how difficult it is to get them on the same page. Techstars Equitech Accelerator ) and women founders (e.g.,

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TechCrunch

MAY 28, 2022

The firm is not always right in its prognostications — maybe why it stuck to internal musings instead of a Medium post this time — but it does do a service in providing a snapshot of how one of the most weathered, and successful, VC firms of all time thinks about a looming downturn. TechCrunch+ is having a Memorial Day sale.

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Revolution

MAY 23, 2023

To shed additional light on this issue and its ultimate impact on startups, I partnered with the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation to ask proptech founders about their capital and strategic partners. VC firms are not blameless — over 1.8K VC investors wrote checks into proptech deals over the last five years.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2022

If you’ve read anything about pitching your company, you’ve probably come across advice that says that you need a warm introduction to an investor. Without a doubt, a good, friendly introduction — ideally from a founder they’ve already invested in — is the best way to get on the radar of an investor.

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 6, 2021

Starting with the assumption that 90% of startups will fail and the most successful ones take an average of six years to IPO, founders must make careful decisions about whom they invite to join the core team. His initial advice? “Investors love founder-CEOs, and founders are often fantastic candidates for this role.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

In order to understand how to “get to yes” with a VC you first need to understand how VC partnerships make decisions and then you can understand how to increase your odds of closing a deal. VC Partnerships Start by understanding how many partners are at the firm you are approaching. Reciprocity is equally destructive.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

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