Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

To understand this in great detail see this very important blog post by Henry Blodget on the unemployment rate in the US and its impact on the recovery. So if I am unnecessarily concerned in this blog post (great!) My advice : if you’re raising a $750,000 round and you have demand for $1.2 million – take it.

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VC startup advice innovation 269

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2009

I wanted to also post the series here to have it as a resource on my blog for future entrepreneurs who stop by. He’s not interested.&# Without much thought I shot back, “That’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard someone give an entrepreneur.&# Doh. If you haven’t spent time over there you should.

entrepreneurs 338

entrepreneurs peer-to-peer advice VC 338

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2009

Arnold Waldstein , who stops by periodically on my blog and always leaves relevant comments, made the observation that, “if I want to connect with you, I’ll engage with you on this blog …from there, a follow on Twitter, a link on LinkedIn are closing the loop of connection rather that opening a cold door.&# This is so true.

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advice networking communities enablement 276

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2010

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “ Techies and Normals &# in which he defined “Techies&# as people who are not just “early adopters&# but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. Anyway, Chris’s blog got me thinking about Techies and Normals. He is both.

advice 348

advice entrepreneurs sustainability pitching 348

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 19, 2010

This comment and blog post prompted me to write a post that has been in my queue for a long time. Tags: Startup Advice. That means most of us are getting derailed from our work four times each hour, maybe more if you work in a high email traffic office.&#. Of even if you don't have a team I'll bet you have a boss.

advice 301

advice consulting entrepreneurs investing 301

Startup Blogpost

OCTOBER 14, 2024

What practical advice do you have for entrepreneurs, especially parents, to prioritize their well-being without sacrificing productivity? Research the specific terms and phrases your potential customers are searching for, then add those keywords to your website content, blog posts, product descriptions, and meta-tags.

media 105

media finance financing founder 105

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 15, 2010

He wrote an excellent blog post on this topic. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Pitching VCs Start-up Advice Startup Advice VC Industry. Jason started the Open Angel Forum in response to his frustration that entrepreneurs were being charged by some angel organizations to present at their events. They deserve more credit.

advice 254

advice angel investing entrepreneurs pitching 254

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . It’s one of my favorite blog posts. I had planned to blog about it at the time but I waited 2 days and the whole world blogged about it so I didn’t pile on. I HATE LOSING. I hate it.

consulting 328

consulting advice collaboration VC 328

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. Last to weigh in was Brad Feld whose blog post argues that the only 2 terms that should be negotiated are amount raised & valuation. The best series was done by Brad Feld on his blog here.

founder 252

founder pitching VC advice 252

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 10, 2010

Ask me something very narrow that I can answer without typing a whole blog post length response. Fred Wilson nailed this in his “double opt in&# blog post. I also covered the “double opt in&# and added my “ I’m moving you to BCC &# advice that is a huge time saver. Tags: Startup Advice.

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advice entrepreneurs investment investing 332

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Fred Wilson said as much on his blog also. That is true of all my blog posts. It is what I love the most about debates and one of the things I love most about blogging. I suspect Mr. Wadhwa used hyperbole in his TechCrunch blog post to get more readers to look at his work. So it is with entrepreneurship.

entrepreneurship 289

entrepreneurship entrepreneurs advice VC 289

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Tags: Startup Advice This Week in Venture Capital. Now that I do they’re willing to accommodate? Gee, if they treat me like this in good times I wonder how they’d treat me in bad times!&#. We spend a lot of time on them in the video but frankly we could have done a 3-hour session.

founder 405

founder VC venture capital entrepreneurs 405

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . It’s one of my favorite blog posts. I had planned to blog about it at the time but I waited 2 days and the whole world blogged about it so I didn’t pile on. Tags: Startup Advice.

consulting 333

consulting advice collaboration VC 333

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 8, 2010

Men, on the other hand, can meet another guy just a couple of times and have no problem reaching out to each other for advice, a favor, or to pitch them on a deal. In another situation, I chat on IM with a junior editor for a tech blog on a regular basis. Tags: First Round Capital Venture Capital & Technology nextNY.

networking 250

networking venture capital advice entrepreneurship 250

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 1, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series on Startup Advice. If you’ve read my blog for a while you’ll know that I’m a fan of starting businesses in a non-traditional way. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Startup Advice. Are you intuitive vs. process oriented? Take your inventory. Know thy weaknesses.

startup 289

startup advice entrepreneurs creativity 289

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

I wrote a blog post about being hands on where I argued that startup founders need to be hands-on or in my words, “you can’t run a burger chain if you’ve never flipped burgers.&#. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Start-up Advice Startup Advice. Unfortunately.

entrepreneurs 286

entrepreneurs advice pitching VC 286

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. 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. Tags: Start-up Advice. If you pick the wrong spouse at least you can get divorced.

VC 297

VC board consulting advice 297

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2009

Yesterday I wrote a blog post ( here ) in which I urged people to not have too many founders. But it is the “founding team” size and “percentage ownership” advice in this post that I feel you’re being too prescriptive about. In terms of %’s, my advice to entrepreneurs is to focus on value and fairness.

founder 251

founder advice entrepreneurs VC 251

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). You need to know how “tag along&# rights could potentially screw you. I know that people have an allergy to lawyers out of fear of being screwed.

startup 318

startup advice entrepreneurs VC 318

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 20, 2009

… should I avoid blog posts like this that might be outside my normal remit? Tags: Start-up Advice. Somebody has stop scumbags like Trilegiant Corporation / Avis Budget and its owners, Apollo Management, from these forms of deceit on our most susceptible members of society. What do you think? I wonder what possessed him?

education 263

education advice board financing 263

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

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. I don’t do advertising on my blog, but I thought it was worth mentioning Ryan in particular because he has an alternate model for doing a startup. They sponsor TWiVC.

VC 214

VC founder advice ventures 214

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I recently read a book I’d highly recommend to every reader of this blog called “ Yes, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive &# by Robert B. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice. Cialdini who is also author of a very well received book called “ Influence &# (which I plan to read).

strategy 293

strategy venture capital SaaS investing 293

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2010

After a few days of controversial blog posts I thought I’d try something more light hearted today. From his blog posting on “ Why Am I passing ?&#. One area where I have made in-roads is in the “I’d like to buy you a coffee for 15 minutes and get some career advice&# emails from people I don’t know.

advice 255

advice investing investment VC 255

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

StackOverflow is a free Q&A site for software developers, blending functionality from wikis, blogs, forums, and social voting (similar to Digg/Reddit); 7.1mm unique visitors per month; new funds will be used to build out engineering team and build out product. I first discovered it from Dharmesh Shah’s blog OnStartups.

VC 285

VC financing finance capital 285

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2010

Let’s face it, if people want to blog as a career they have to be able to make money. Tags: Start-up Advice. Furthermore, when Twitter publishers make money from their work in supporting the Twitter platform this is good news for all involved. This is good for Twitter as well.

advice 276

advice energy support media 276

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. Tags: Startup Advice. 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

MARCH 6, 2010

Since I answer this all the time anyway I thought it might make an interesting blog post. They speak of “my CEO’s.&# They talk about how this company failed because the management team didn’t listen to my advice and that one succeeded because we helped point them in the right direction. That’s true.

VC 312

VC consulting entrepreneurs creativity 312

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We also discussed how to deal with pricing in angel rounds and a strategy I advocated in my “social proof&# blog post , which is to price your initial angel round really low and get in the best possible angels as a way to get momentum in the company. I have a link on my blog to the angel deals I’ve done, which is here.

venture capital 282

venture capital capital ventures angel investing 282

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2009

This is part of my blog series “ Pitching a VC.&#. The advice I gave to my sales execs is the same advice I would give to you: smiling, nodding heads are normally not a great sign. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital.

VC 275

VC peer-to-peer pitching advice 275

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. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice. This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC.&#.

pitching 288

pitching VC advice strategy 288

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2010

I know that would be surprising to many readers since keeping a blog somehow convinces people that I’m a time management or productivity ninja. Tags: Startup Advice. Here’s how I break down the four quadrants (and I’ve put my definitions in here – not Covey’s). I’m not. How about you?

mentorship 374

mentorship creativity energy entrepreneurs 374

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

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). I give a sneak peek at a blog post I’m writing on the topic next week. What advice do you have for people who want to get into venture capital? Tags: This Week in Venture Capital.

VC 210

VC ventures venture capital advice 210

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 ?&# Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice. Seth was basing this on a Tweet by Paul Graham that said&#. “Convertible notes have won.

finance 319

finance financing entrepreneurs advice 319

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Final point worth noting … While reading one of David Lerner’s comments on my last blog post it made me realize that sometimes it’s OK to play poker just for the sake of playing & enjoying and knowing that you might lose some money. Tags: Startup Advice Tech Market Analysis VC Industry.

angel investing 283

angel investing investing investment disruption 283

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. if you need advice on how to find / work with startup lawyers cheaply click that link). Photo credit: D. Blanchard/O’Reilly Media.

finance 286

finance financing advice VC 286

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. Tags: Start-up Advice Startup Advice. This is a slightly longer version and also has an update at the end. Just keeping track of daily calories through DailyBurn.

entrepreneurs 308

entrepreneurs advice real estate venture capital 308

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

Some advice on how to do that was covered in this link – Getting Access to a VC. Plus, now they need to Tweet, use Facebook, attend conferences and keep a blog! Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital. This post covers the day after. Let’s be honest.

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VC pitching advice strategy 277