This is going to be BIG.

MAY 13, 2015

The NYC based company makes ready-to-cook meals comprised of 100% organic, fresh-cut vegetable noodles paired with all-natural chef-designed sauces, toppings and optional pre-roasted proteins--and they're delicious. The food has become a staple of my diet, which wasn't the case after trying various food delivery services out on the market.

investment 356

investment investing enablement ventures 356

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

I’ve seen too many companies go off track by a VC hell bent on the team pursuing the VCs strategy which at times is about chasing the next shiny object. I would call their portfolio companies and ask how helpful or not they’ve been. I call them “ VCs Seagulls.” FourSquare. Everywhere. It’s not you.

VC 364

VC advice board leadership 364

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 7, 2021

This chart from our portfolio company Wren’s website shows how we might get there: The bet on the price of carbon is a belief that the world will choose to eliminate its addiction to carbon over the next thirty years and that one way or another carbon emissions will become very costly and carbon capture will become very profitable.

investment 363

investment investing 363

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

No more “How can my company get faster internet?” The New York City tech community has the opportunity to be seen as a very public and influential champion of fairness and equality within our city—and it’s in the community’s best interest as well. That’s it. It should be “How can everyone get faster internet?”

transportation 303

transportation education construction communities 303

The Seraf Compass

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

When I began making angel investments almost twenty years ago, I had no concept of what it meant to build a portfolio of early stage tech company investments. It wasn’t because I lacked financial savvy. I considered myself a fairly knowledgeable investor in the public markets.

angel investing 265

angel investing startup investment investing 265

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Let’s say that your ideal clients are CEOs of mid-market companies that need your consulting services. With over 40 years of experience working in the technology realm, Steve loves the thrill of starting and growing a company — he started and sold six companies of his own. Where can you find them? What about smaller fish?

culture 260

culture incubation entrepreneurs media 260

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

Venture backed companies have a strange relationship to positive cashflow. If you have positive cashflow, you can buy back your stock if any comes into the market at prices that you and your Board feels is below fair value. In the early days it makes sense to burn cash. If you do not have revenues, you can’t generate cash.

finance 223

finance financing board capital 223

American Entrepreneurship

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

The crypto casino market has seen dramatic growth over the past few years driven by innovations like provably fair games, robust VIP programs, and streaming,” says CEO Eccles. The post FanDuel Co-Founders Close $6M Seed Round for New Crypto Casino and Sportsbook Company appeared first on American Entrepreneurship Today®.

founder 97

founder innovation entrepreneurship capital 97

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

” in 2014 the data seems pretty conclusive because LA has now become the fastest growing tech startup region by numbers of companies being started and those of us here have noticed this pace accelerating. Both are massively funding other LA tech companies through what Fred Wilson once defined as “recycled capital.”

entrepreneurs 376

entrepreneurs creativity technology capital 376

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

I was at a dinner recently in Chicago and the table discussion was about building great companies outside of Silicon Valley. It’s not the great companies you build, it’s the silent killer of those that should have been build locally and weren’t. Klout was an LA company – sold for $200 million to Lithium.

communities 369

communities venture capital capital consulting 369

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 17, 2024

The decision to fund a company is a combination of a lot of human factors—an assessment of one group of humans by another group of humans, fraught with apples-to-oranges comparisons. Yet, everyone’s got an opinion about how a company measures up, especially the founder. ( You sold your last company? Sorry, you can’t.

startup 410

startup micromobility consulting hospitality 410

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 2, 2016

Founders start companies. In the old days this may have made sense since founders took huge economic risks and often refinanced houses or built companies with almost no money. These days founders often raise money with minimal time spent creating a company and often have salaries from the early days. Everybody knows this.

peer-to-peer 271

peer-to-peer education capital innovation 271

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

Pre-money ($8m) + investment ($2m) = Post-money ($10m) and the investors now own 20% of your company $2m / $10m. This was until about 2009 because most the investments in companies came from one, maybe two, sources. If that’s the case I’d only own 18.18%, which wasn’t my expectation when I offered to fund the company.

VC 364

VC finance financing board 364

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 28, 2021

In fact, it’s why many startup folks leave the early stage world to go over to the big company side—because the benefits tend to be much better. We both showered in the last 24 hours, which is a major moral victory for the team. TFW you’re small and slippery and you realize your parents have no idea how to give you a bath.

hospitality 469

hospitality board energy pitching 469

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

The company with no revenue and a $150k burn rate that raised $2.5 I with every entrepreneur would forward that article to their favorite journalist so we could stop having this conversation of “yeah, but company so-and-so isn’t profitable!” Fair point. You’re out of money. So you take the offer you get.

VC 412

VC advice strategy accelerator 412

Entrepreneurs' Organization

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

With the right remote work plan in place, you can even offer work-from-home opportunities as rewards for hard work or as a company-wide benefit. You want to do whatever you can to prevent the same financial crisis from happening to your company in the case of future pandemic, natural disaster or other emergency economic situation.

creativity 306

creativity collaboration health strategy 306

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2022

1/ As the pandemic evolves into an endemic in the first half of 2022, companies will reopen their offices and their employees will largely opt to go back to working together in offices. Companies have become much more comfortable hiring remote employees who don’t live near a company office.

finance 236

finance financing innovation education 236

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MAY 21, 2021

Family-owned and operated companies hold a special place in my heart. If your business has made it into the third generation, you’re among an elite 10% of successful companies. The following are my observations about mistakes family-run companies often make. The odds are stacked against small, family-owned businesses.

founder 286

founder finance financing investment 286

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 25, 2016

There's no official definition of a lead other than someone who puts down a term sheet, helps gather the round, and who is most active with the company. You've got all these indecisive people buzzing around the company, and you put down some terms that are fair and everyone can agree to.

investment 284

investment investing support entrepreneurs 284

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2015

People seem polarized between, “that’s what it takes to succeed” to “I can’t believe what a heartless, intolerant and misogynistic company culture they’ve built.” How could you expect this to occur in a laissez-faire culture? Think your favorite company Apple is a cake walk? ” No.

culture 372

culture consulting startup finance 372

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 26, 2023

Ten years ago, a small group of folks in the K12 Computer Science Education community in NYC decided to put on a “mock job fair” for high school students who were taking computer science classes in the NYC public schools. Yesterday we got the Fair back in person after three years of not doing it or doing it remotely.

education 190

education communities ventures 190

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 18, 2022

Although we have a fantastic financial team at USV, we do not simply outsource valuing the portfolio to them because we understand that those who are closest to the portfolio companies will have the best view of what they are worth. When a company is having real issues, we like to take total or partial write downs. I hope we always do.

venture capital 235

venture capital capital ventures creativity 235

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 25, 2023

So when someone gives you a single, declarative reason for a pass, they’re either saying one of two things: In my experience, companies that have this particular attribute have an outsized risk associated with them that isn’t in my view made up for by the potential return. That’s fair. Ok, I can accept that. Technically, it’s a title.

founder 364

founder VC board pitching 364

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

This was certainly the case when I invested in a small YouTube video production company called Maker Studios that recently sold to Disney for just shy of $1 billion. ” By that we weren’t trying to demean companies building aps, games, photo sharing, etc., As I like to say, “We need to fight. 6SensorLabs. 6SensorLabs.

funders 362

funders culture incumbents technology 362

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 2, 2014

One of the most common refrains I hear is, “I want to have a company with no politics. It’s why I wrote a post outlining why the job of a CEO is often “chief psychologist” – especially if the company grows beyond 20 employees. And it’s why many early-stage companies blow up. You know, no b t.”

startup 385

startup coworking advice leadership 385

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

I wrote a fair bit last year about the disconnect between how companies were being valued and the fundamentals of those businesses. With the public markets bringing high flyers back to reality, you can now buy the best companies out there at multiples of earnings and profits that make some sense in a historical context.

sustainability 251

sustainability leadership founder capital 251

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

What changed — and why the definition changed — was it became 90+% cheaper to start companies and thus seed funds appeared en masse as did angels so the size of seed rounds actually INCREASED and the size of A-rounds in many instances decreased. Why the latter? If you''re newer to VC math here''s a great primer].

VC 399

VC advice finance financing 399

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 14, 2020

I cannot think of a public company that allows its shareholders that level of impact on their direction. We have seen a number of communities make very significant changes in things like total supply of tokens, inflation rates, and technology roadmaps in recent months.

innovation 257

innovation capital communities opportunity 257

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

Today we’re in a world where 10 accelerators are bombarding you with emails to meet their 10-15 companies. Of course these are great places to network with other investors, meet great entrepreneurs and keep your connections strong with senior execs at larger companies like Yahoo!, You have to deal with CEOs who resign.

VC 374

VC investment investing entrepreneurs 374

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2015

We had connected by e-mail about Tinybop and I knew she was interested in kids apps and companies. So when Meg and Carolyn wanted help on their announcement, I knew the right person to cover it from the tech side-- Sarah Perez from Techcrunch. I met Sarah in person at Techcrunch Disrupt in NYC a few years ago.

venture capital 295

venture capital disruption pitching ventures 295

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2013

In my post I noted the bias in his accent comments and also called b t on his statements that Demo Days are great because “the bad companies look good” and that VCs should compete to “pay the highest price & offer the best terms.” I did so before when he originally uttered the accents comment for the NY Times.

innovation 391

innovation culture advice education 391

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MARCH 18, 2020

He is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners , an affiliation marketing company. While many businesses will struggle with the shift to a stay-home economy, both companies and content publishers in these 10 verticals are poised to thrive, especially though a relationship called affiliate marketing.

health 307

health accelerator opportunity hospitality 307

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 27, 2017

Founders don't start companies so they can spend half their time asking people for money and VCs don't love the dance either. If you wind up getting more interest than you anticipated in a seed round, give the investors a fair opportunity to work together. Fundraising sucks. No one likes it. I favor the simple math approach.

VC 353

VC pitching founder opportunity 353

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

As many of you know, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are all the rage on wall street right now. SPACs are publicly traded “shell companies” that raise capital in an IPO process and then use that capital to merge with a privately held business. But my thinking on SPACs has changed in this latest SPAC frenzy.

VC 279

VC capital board founder 279

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 22, 2015

I'm excited to be able to finally announce Brooklyn Bridge Ventures ' investment in Clubhouse , a company I agreed to back before I even knew what it was. For him to leave a great job at a growing company where he had become CTO, it had to be real. Another hugely successful software company with that design philosophy was Salesforce.

pitching 319

pitching construction development communities 319

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MARCH 5, 2020

As a certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) , it is absolutely my responsibility to support gender equality in my own company. When selecting third-party suppliers, we strive to engage with women-owned companies whenever possible. We are therefore in a position to shape these companies from the outset. In what ways?

consulting 242

consulting entrepreneurship leadership mentorship 242

Entrepreneurs' Organization

APRIL 22, 2022

What affected me affected the company and vice-versa. The idea that my company is “just a company” and if it goes away, I am still here, is very simple yet very liberating. I cannot remember, nor can I imagine, a time when the above was not the case. — Kym Huynh, EO Melbourne, founder of WeTeachMe.

advice 275

advice creativity entrepreneurs entrepreneurship 275