Dream It

JANUARY 13, 2021

The venture capital screening call is an important step to get right in due diligence. Learn how to pass a VC associate screen in under 10 minutes! By Elliot Levy , Healthtech Associate at Dreamit Ventures Book Office Hours with me. To get to partners, often you’ll have to go through the associate first.

VC 364

VC founder consulting networking 364

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 14, 2020

The NVCA and Pitch Book are out with their Q3 report on the VC industry and what they report is that the VC industry continues to be very active throughout the pandemic. The massive expansion of later-stage private capital continues unabated. The massive expansion of later-stage private capital continues unabated.

ventures 362

ventures VC pitching innovation 362

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2010

They had received a term sheet from a VC and were wondering whether to work with this firm. I often tell people that raising venture capital is more difficult than getting married. Not so in venture capital. You’re tied at the hip to your VC. But what was the VC like when the chips were down?

VC 298

VC advice venture capital entrepreneurs 298

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

He spoke about ROCE (return on capital employed). But “on capital employed” encourages companies to push more off balance sheet and thus into offshore & outsourced situations. Venture Capital. We spoke about the disruption of VC through crowd funding. So they could monetize and people would pay.

education 403

education disruption entrepreneurship venture capital 403

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. In fact, far better if you haven’t raised venture capital. A: It’s not best.

venture capital 282

venture capital capital ventures angel investing 282

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 6, 2013

” The local kennels were full as many people had pre-booked for vacations. She sprung into action and called the house I wanted to book directly (they obviously don’t provide phone numbers for you to call directly although a Twilio integration couldn’t hurt!). ” Booked it. “Oh s**t.”

collaboration 344

collaboration VC accelerator consulting 344

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. ” Put simply, if you care about building a successful tech community outside Silicon Valley you should read this book.

communities 378

communities startup venture capital capital 378

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

I spoke at Michael Kim’s excellent annual Cendana VC/LP conference today. One of the points I tried to make is that as venture capital investors as an industry we seem to have a healthy disdain for public market investors. What is your revenue growth rate and what does this imply about your number of months of capital remaining?

VC 392

VC capital culture venture capital 392

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 23, 2012

I read this book, " Why We Make Mistake s " and it talks a lot about "recall bias". When people tell you how and why they raised capital or what drove their app to success, they often attribute success to planning or neat little explainable reasons when they might simply have no clue what happened. Why ever read another tech blog?

advice 412

advice startup VC strategy 412

Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

It’s that time of year, time to look back and reflect on the most significant storylines in the tech, startup, and VC world. 6/ Venture Capital In Expansion Phase. During this time, there’s financial leverage used in the transaction to help buffer the firm’s cost of capital (e.g.

VC 165

VC startup venture capital mix-use 165

Startup Grind

AUGUST 15, 2018

Prior to co-founding CCV, Marlon was an investment director at Intel Capital where he completed his Kauffman Fellowship. Just last week they announced a $20M Series A that was led by Andreessen Horowitz and was oversubscribed only a year after their series seed, which we led alongside First Round Capital.

culture 111

culture VC pitching investment 111

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “ Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts? She has a quote from literally every major VC from whom you’d want to hear. ” [it's short, you should read it]. Please watch this. Every single one.

entrepreneurs 341

entrepreneurs entrepreneurship VC pitching 341

Entrepreneur's Handbook

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

It’s not about being rich, it’s about repeatedly building value What some people think will happen when you become a founder | source I love the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Forget venture capital. I think VCs may underestimate the extent to which mainstream entrepreneurship is a key input to outliers and moonshots.

founder 144

founder VC venture capital entrepreneurship 144

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. Cialdini who is also author of a very well received book called “ Influence &# (which I plan to read). You should, too. (no, This is all explicit decision making.

strategy 293

strategy venture capital SaaS investment 293

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JUNE 17, 2019

One of the many great things about vacations is reading books. Vacation is the one time that I can really prioritize reading books (as opposed to everything else I read). I just finished Scott Kupor ‘s Secrets Of Sand Hill Road , a book for entrepreneurs about rasing capital from venture firms.

VC 209

VC pitching venture capital entrepreneurs 209

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

The part of the movement that resonates the most with me (in my words) is that entrepreneurs should keep their capital expenditures really low while they’re experimenting with their product and determining whether there is a large market for what they do. I believe that over capitalizing companies too early often favors the VC.

entrepreneurs 374

entrepreneurs incubation board VC 374

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

The idea is simple enough: several female VC partners at top funds will hold 1-hour meetings with 40 promising female entrepreneurs looking to get advice on their business and pitch in a friendly, non-judgmental, safe environment. In Dan Rather’s book he talks about Ruth Bader Ginsberg who was appointed the the Supreme Court in 1993.

founder 256

founder peer-to-peer VC mentorship 256

David Teten VC

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

It’s hard enough to raise capital from VC, private equity fund, and family offices. The vastly larger universe of B2B companies, many of which have teams focused on pushing VC and private equity funds to evangelize their product to their portfolio. See my list of due diligence questions for VC and private equity funds. .

venture capital 126

venture capital capital ventures VC 126

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. Have easy access to capital by investors who are committed to building businesses at Interent scale. Internet scale.

startup 418

startup VC investment investing 418

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

But I guess you could say the same about VC. Stock market declines would bring back dog days of VC. If you want a comprehensive summary of the industry in this era it’s worth a read: VC Ice Age Part 1 – What Happens When a Market Comes to a Standstill? VC Ice Age Part 2 – Why the Market Started Moving Again?

VC 305

VC disruption entrepreneurs venture capital 305

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. If you hadn’t read the book I’ll bet most of you (like me) had never understood the role that Coach Campbell played with the three execs but according to the book at one point they were having weekly sessions with him. VENTURE CAPITAL.

startup 363

startup real estate VC venture capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

After 9 months it was time to raise seed capital and go test drive our new software and processes. Sam moved back to NY and we announced our seed round of capital, which we led. They did customer pickups, the drove vans to storage facilities, the deal with booking and customer support issues – everything.

real estate 380

real estate ventures innovation pitching 380

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

What is the True Sentiment of VCs? I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” This is how VCs feel. That’s the beauty of markets and of capitalism.

startup 285

startup VC entrepreneurs investment 285

Dream It

MAY 19, 2021

VC funds value-creating milestones, not runway. Your milestones determine the amount of runway needed, and thus your capital raise requirements, not the other way around. Investors may believe that there are value-creating milestones achievable on less capital. Remember, time is not a fundable milestone. Add some cushion.

pitching 393

pitching board health VC 393

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

Generally speaking in venture capital financings the legal documents will specify that only “major investors” (a threshold set in the agreement – which can be $500,000 investor or more). Does he blog about venture capital and try to advise entrepreneurs? Has written a book on venture capital. You betcha.

venture capital 352

venture capital VC board financing 352

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

Contrast that with a VC conversation I had. In case you don’t know – as VCs we have have 2 sets of customers: LPs (limited partners) who invest money in our funds and entrepreneurs (who we in turn give money to and help support them in building businesses we hope will be valuable). If not, somebody else will.

peer-to-peer 341

peer-to-peer VC entrepreneurs support 341

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

So it was my great pleasure to host Chamillionaire on This Week in VC this week talking marketing, entrepreneurship, old media and, of course, music. Raising Capital – The VC equivalent for musicians is getting signed by a major label. People want what they can’t have and VCs are no different. .’

entrepreneurs 356

entrepreneurs media VC creativity 356

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 14, 2019

And it turns out that the Whaling industry in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries looked remarkably similar to today’s venture capital business. Some of my friends and colleagues have been texting and tweeting about a book called VC: An American History by Tom Nicholas. I hope it catches on.

venture capital 210

venture capital VC ventures capital 210

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Frankly, I think venture capital is that way, too. How do VCs break out of group think when they are shuttling from one board meeting to the next, from one conference to the other and talking with all the same people? How does the world in Los Angeles intersect differently with venture capital? I know, I’m weird.

creativity 400

creativity venture capital entrepreneurs board 400

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2015

Try to imagine if you *didn’t* already know Amazon and the company walking into VC meetings telling people they were going to disrupt the selling of all goods starting with books but then extending into electronics, apparel, toys and so forth. What tech has our capital raised gone into?

real estate 364

real estate startup disruption incumbents 364

David Teten VC

JUNE 9, 2021

Would you like to work with private equity and venture capital funds? There are relatively few jobs directly inside private equity and venture capital funds, and those jobs are highly competitive. See How to negotiate a partner role at a VC or private equity firm.) At Versatile VC , we’ve used all these models.

consulting 128

consulting venture capital board capital 128

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Given how efficient markets are when a large market like LA starts to blossom it attracts capital pretty quickly. billion in venture capital to LA’s technology startups and 2014 will shatter that figure. Both are massively funding other LA tech companies through what Fred Wilson once defined as “recycled capital.”

entrepreneurs 376

entrepreneurs creativity technology capital 376

Revolution

OCTOBER 25, 2023

What we did: Rise of the Rest Associate, Isabelle Styslinger , went west for Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association ’s Emerging VC Summit, where she networked, knowledge shared, and explored Bozeman’s great outdoors with dozens of investors whose geographic focus spans the Mountain West. Where we went: Bozeman, MT?

real estate 246

real estate funders innovation VC 246

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 31, 2023

I like to think of what we’ve been going through in the tech sector/startup land/venture capital over the last year as a cleanse. Venture capital firms got out of whack. VC portfolios have been marked down upwards of 50% and more. Things had gotten so nutty, frothy, and out of control that we needed a reset.

venture capital 267

venture capital VC culture capital 267

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

I see many companies these days just race to raise capital. They see capital raising at the success validator. He calls this competing with “non consumption” It was the most profound business strategy book I had read and greatly influenced how I thought about company building and certainly how I think about investing.

strategy 401

strategy startup peer-to-peer advice 401

Tomasz Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

I’ve been searching for a great history of the venture capital industry since before I joined Redpoint. There are a handful of books that are pretty good. Creative Capital. But there’s a great one called VC by Tom Nicholas. Nicholas traces the history of the venture capital industry back to whaling.

VC 88

VC venture capital creativity ventures 88

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Matt and many members of his leadership team got the band back together early this year and started a new company called Bolster in partnership with Silicon Valley Bank and the early-stage VC firm High Alpha. Matt is a great CEO and has even written a book about leading and growing a company called Startup CEO.

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board leadership venture capital VC 218