Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

This happens slowly because while public markets trade daily and prices then adjust instantly, private markets don’t get reset until follow-on financing rounds happen which can take 6–24 months. First in late-stage tech companies and then it will filter back to Growth and then A and ultimately Seed Rounds. And reset they must.

VC 416

VC strategy investing investment 416

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2015

If you are a 20-something tech entrepreneur you could be forgiven for thinking that seed-stage investors, Angellist Syndicates and widely available angel money always existed. I was out to raise my first seed money in my second startup of $500,000. I was out to raise my first seed money in my second startup of $500,000.

VC 348

VC peer-to-peer frameworks board 348

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

If you read this blog often you'll know that I'm a huge fan of First Round Capital. One example is that they introduced a program where their founders can pool together shares from their company and exchange them for a small portfolio of other First Round Capital companies. I'm a huge fan of this innovation. and Half.com.

capital 284

capital board VC pitching 284

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

So how did Mike get into VC? Since then Mike his built his career by investing in early-stage companies (seed or series A), which is remarkable given that Polaris Ventures is a $1 billion fund. So how is Mike able to do this at a time where others have warned against taking seed money from VC funds?

VC 230

VC ventures venture capital capital 230

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 16, 2014

How long does it take from first meeting a VC to getting cash in the bank? Theoretically, someone could meet you, sign your document, and write you a check for deposit that day, but that''s not how it usually works. How long in advance did I know someone, or know about a deal before I wired money? That was three years earlier.

VC 415

VC pitching networking venture capital 415

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

Through this process he raised $2 million. Because my wife is a superstar she published them all on a blog here along with much other wonderful type-A mom advice. Because my wife is a superstar she published them all on a blog here along with much other wonderful type-A mom advice. I know this guy is a money maker.

VC 292

VC peer-to-peer investing investment 292

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

I want to emphasize that this is “blind” data (I do not know which person or firm said what making this confidential and less biased) and nobody responding had any motive other than just telling us how they were feeling. When I started blogging it was because I was inspired by Brad Feld. There is reason for despondency.

startup 285

startup VC entrepreneurs investing 285

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. Prorata investments rights given investors the right to invest in your future fund-raising rounds and maintain their ownership % in your company as your company grows and raises more capital.

VC 336

VC investing investment entrepreneurs 336

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 17, 2012

How do you price a round? It seems to me that the most important factor in pricing your round isn't your progress or your idea. It seems to come down to two things: 1) How much do you want to raise? So the more you want to raise, the more your company is worth? It's a function of a few things.

venture capital 296

venture capital frameworks capital ventures 296

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. Raised angel money from Rob Lord, Reid Hoffman, Benchmark Capital and others. Farb talks about how he did that. Total round was $2.5 He’s also candid, humble and helpful.

VC 214

VC founder advice ventures 214

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 22, 2014

I had a chance to be in the seed round and unfortunately didn’t do so. I had a chance to be in the seed round and unfortunately didn’t do so. I was at an alumni dinner at UCSD (I am on the alumni board) and a group of people were talking about how their kids use UberX to get rides home from parties at night.

mix-use 418

mix-use innovation pitching board 418

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 10, 2011

Even the one time blogging platform of choice Wordpress can, without a lot of hassles, can be manipulated to be your entire site's content management system. More recently, Jim and Vinny the founders of Yipit taught themselves how to code to get their service up and running, after working in investment banking. That's right--Indiana.

incubation 268

incubation peer-to-peer communities financing 268

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 3, 2019

How then, do you expect to make money when you’re buying on the public market? How come VCs don’t think about it that way? If you’re a first check lead VC for pre-seed rounds in New York, you can keep your head on when it comes to price, but in SF if you’re trying to fund companies from YC, good luck with your price discipline.

mix-use 276

mix-use pitching investing investment 276

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding. What are the three most important lessons investors could pass along to first-time entrepreneurs raising money? short answer: very, very rarely. But it does happen.

VC 285

VC financing finance capital 285

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

When I first read Paul Graham’s blog post on “High Resolution&# Financing I read it as a treatise arguing that convertible notes are better than equity. As I’m generally a believer in ‘pricing rounds’ I initially didn’t agree with the premise of the post. Photo credit: D.

financing 286

financing finance advice VC 286

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

That great productivity drain that we somehow all buy into. I’ve taken to saying, “Email is our personal to-do list that anybody adds to – whether they know us or not.” ” I was lamenting it tonight when I saw the most brilliant response Tweet by Andrew Hyde . ” Brilliant! It has become part of modern life.

advice 314

advice culture board VC 314

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

We talked about who the great firms in Europe are (Index, Accel) as well as the hottest seed investors: Robin & Saul Klein. We talked about the negative effect of Apple’s closed system attitude but how that will be a gift to the market because Apple’s cracking of the operator hegemony has forced the industry to innovate.

VC 225

VC social gaming venture capital networking 225

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 10, 2012

They're raising money to try and make the connections to clients they don't have yet. We do a quick hacky check with people we know if it seems interesting, and because we don't know how to pitch it as well as you do, they don't get excited, so we don't. You convince them you have worldchanging insight into how to help them.

pitching 340

pitching startup networking founder 340

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

That prompted Fred Wilson’s blog post appealing to the industry to make these simplified term sheets standard. That prompted Fred Wilson’s blog post appealing to the industry to make these simplified term sheets standard. 2006 was the last time I went out to raise venture capital. I totally agree.

founder 252

founder pitching VC advice 252

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 19, 2009

He … said that his fund would actively help in getting us the next round. … Not too long thereafter the angel was back in, in a bigger round, no more tranche’s, with new investors to boot. I then covered Street Smarts , Ability to Pivot and Resiliency. What to understand resiliency? Much is also about luck and timing.

entrepreneurs 288

entrepreneurs advice leadership angel investing 288

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. When you are raising a large, later-stage round given by this time you’ve likely got a fairly large business to run.

advice 361

advice VC pitching entrepreneurs 361

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 ?&# I’ve written about the topic of convertible debt at length before specifically about how angels & entrepreneurs should think about pricing. Why many early-stage investors DO price rounds (e.g.

finance 319

finance financing entrepreneurs advice 319

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

If you want a very quick primer on all the stuff nobody ever tells you about raising venture capital check out this video where Mark Jeffrey & I break it down on This Week in VC. All of this is covered in more detail on the TWiVC video above (and much of it is covered in text on this blog on the “ Raising VC &# tab).

VC 340

VC venture capital leadership pitching 340

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 9, 2009

I recently wrote a blog post here in which I argued that the best VC meetings are discussions and not sales pitches. A few weeks ago I sat through two very contrasting presentations and wrote this blog post right afterward. A few weeks ago I sat through two very contrasting presentations and wrote this blog post right afterward.

pitching 288

pitching VC advice strategy 288

Gust

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

In recent years, startup accelerators such as Y Combinator, TechStars or 500 Startups, blogs including Venture Hacks, Fred Wilson’s A VC and Mark Suster’s Both Sides of the Table, and other resources have contributed to closing this knowledge gap. See my blogroll for links to many of the best resources.) Knowledge is power.

financing 178

financing finance VC entrepreneurs 178

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. an investment in your company.

VC 332

VC advice entrepreneurs energy 332

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 5, 2024

Here are the top blog posts EO published on Inc.com in 2023: 1. Read the post to learn how to implement this time-saving process in your company. OKRs-Objectives and Key Results-have transformed how I do business. These insights from top entrepreneurs benefit EO members plus the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem. But the No.1

consulting 211

consulting real estate entrepreneurial ecosystem entrepreneurs 211

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. If you enjoy this blog I think you’ll enjoy watching the first 14 minutes of this video (just click on the image of me below). Great exit. - No problem to have some developers in remote locations.

VC 210

VC ventures venture capital advice 210

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

One would think entrepreneurs would never want less available cash – until such time as their competitors ridiculously and unnecessarily all raise $50 million in the name of a “land grab” thus making it much harder for your totally reasonable company to attract investors. We are experiencing a frenetic time.

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2011

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Chris Sacca fly by that prompted me to want to write a blog post helping entrepreneurs understand why they should push back against VCs asking for “super pro-rata” rights. There is a lot of confusion about how pro-rata rights are implemented as evidenced by this post by Seth Levine of Foundry Group.

entrepreneurs 310

entrepreneurs VC financing finance 310

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

I have talked about this publicly a great deal – how I prefer “missionaries” over “mercenaries.” Jonathan Strauss took this issue head on in a blog post that I believe every startup founder should read on “ Replacing Oneself as CEO.” How could these statements live in the same sentence? *.

peer-to-peer 303

peer-to-peer energy founder advice 303

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 26, 2022

That’s just not how it works. If you raised the same sized seed round as everyone else, you can only hire so many salespeople, put so much into marketing, and those resources can only grab so many customers in an efficient market for people’s time. So how can founders differentiate?

founder 259

founder pitching VC creativity 259

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

Keeping a blog has been great because so many entrepreneurs have written me with questions about their companies and I’ve gotten to know many of you personally through the process. I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. If you pick the wrong spouse at least you can get divorced. There are many great VCs.

VC 297

VC board consulting advice 297

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

In case you missed all the kerfuffle this weekend, I posted this blog post originally on TechCrunch. I hope I straddled people’s points of view well enough not to have offended anybody while adding a framework for how I think about the service. This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write. A few reasons.

angel investing 267

angel investing VC mix-use entrepreneurs 267

TechCrunch

JANUARY 22, 2021

When Stripe-subsidiary Paystack raised its seed round of $1.3 million in 2016, it was one of the largest disclosed rounds at that stage in Nigeria. . At the time, seven-figure seed investments in African startups were a rarity. Nigeria’s Kuda raises $10M to be the mobile-first challenger bank for Africa.

founder 137

founder investing investment VC 137

Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 16, 2023

In December 2022, my co-founder and I closed a friends and family seed round for Popsmith , raising US$1.53 million from 84 investors in under 45 days during arguably one of the worst times to raise money since 2008. I’ve founded several companies over the past 20 years, but this was my first time raising money.

entrepreneurs 180

entrepreneurs entrepreneurship health support 180

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 5, 2011

I'm a strong believer in having a board, even at a seed stage, to report to and set strategy with. VC Blogger Fanboy This geek reads all the blogs religiously and is a lean startup ninja. Advisors, investors and board members come in all shapes and sizes. Don't let the fanboys distract you from business 101. The Powerpoint Celebrity.

board 278

board advice consulting angel investing 278