July, 2010

article thumbnail

Want to Know How VC’s Calculate Valuation Differently from Founders?

Both Sides of the Table

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. It was accept the terms or go into bankruptcy so we took the money.

founder 405
article thumbnail

Fast Company’s Influence Project and Reputation Racketeering

This is going to be BIG.

Fast Company wants to know who has the most online influence. They’re trying to measure it using a big social media ponzi scheme where you get a unique link that you get others to click using all your various social profiles. The more clicks you can garner, the more influence you have. Therefore, the person who not only has the most time to waste and can also waste the most collective time of others gets to be featured in their magazine.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

An experienced coach has seen your movie before.

Berkonomics

Business coaches come in all sizes and shapes. You’ll have a relative willing to devote time, a school friend with business experience, professionals who charge for the service, investors with a reason to promote your success and more. But by far the best coaches are those that have lived through the process you’re going through and built successful enterprises in your same industry.

board 71
article thumbnail

Optimizing your Customer Acquisition Funnel

For Entrepreneurs

Almost every sales and marketing funnel has blockage points where the conversion rates are lower than hoped, or the process cannot be scaled. This blog post talks about how to solve those blockage points using an intense study of the customer's concerns, and brainstorming to see what motivations can be used to over come the friction that comes from these concerns.

startup 168
article thumbnail

The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

article thumbnail

On Google, Growth, Pricing Power, and Valuation Multiples

abovethecrowd.com

Last night, Google reported financial results for the second quarter of 2010. While revenue growth was up 24% year over year, revenue was fairly flat compared with Q1 of 2010. Moreover, earnings fell short of average street estimates sending Google down $20 per share (4%) in the aftermarket. Based on current estimates (which might change [.].

52

More Trending

article thumbnail

I Want My CIC! … The Benefits for Startups to Be Co-Located

Both Sides of the Table

[if you're not old enough to get the reference between this image and the title you can click on the image for a prompter]. This past December I spent a week in Boston to try to get to know some of the local VC’s and entrepreneurs a bit better. One of the meetings I had (organized by my good friend Jeff Yolen ) was with New Atlantic Ventures held the at the CIC, aka the Cambridge Innovation Center (no prizes for guessing where it’s located).

article thumbnail

A Guide to Using Authority & Social Proof in Fund Raising

Both Sides of the Table

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). “Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is fille

strategy 293
article thumbnail

This Week in VC – Scott Painter, CEO of Zag & TrueCar

Both Sides of the Table

I think I’ve now mastered how to make images clickable so in the future you *should* always be able to click on the TWiVC image above and go directly to the video. Just in case here’s the link to this week’s episode. Our guest this week was Scott Painter. Scott is the kind of guy you could just grab a drink with, sit back and listen to him tell stories for hours.

VC 248
article thumbnail

The Benefits of Top-Down Thinking & Why it is Critical to Entrepreneurs

Both Sides of the Table

For the first 5 years of my career I was a “bottom up&# thinker and worker. I assembled tons of data, grouped things, found results and drew conclusions. It was difficult to make the transition to a “top down&# thinker but as a senior executive – and as an entrepreneur – you’re far less effective without this skill in your arsenal.

article thumbnail

PE Mastery: CAPTARGET's Playbook for Quality Lead Flow

CAPTARGET presents a masterclass in M&A deal sourcing. Learn to cast a wide net, embracing seller self-identification. Consistency is the linchpin: keep the origination process steady for a reliable flow of opportunities. Diversify your tactics, employing various tools and vendors. Tech matters! Understand DNS settings, domain authority, and brand presence for optimal outreach.

article thumbnail

People Management: Startup Teams Should Dip but not Skip

Both Sides of the Table

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I’m not a big believer in too much hierarchy. A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels.

startup 308
article thumbnail

How to Acquire Customers by Marketing “Heroes”

Both Sides of the Table

Social Proof in Action … Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital. If you didn’t read that yet it might be worth having a quick skim as a primer. Social proof is defined as “looking for others to guide our decisions&# and is also one of the most important techniques in acquiring customers in your company.

article thumbnail

Venture Capital Q&A Session

Both Sides of the Table

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. We will continue to do more of this. If you want to watch the show click the image above or this link , but if you want a quick read – here’s a summary: 1.

article thumbnail

This Week in VC: Michael Montgomery (President, Montgomery & Co.)

Both Sides of the Table

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. If you don’t know Montgomery & Co it is one of the premier technology & media focused investment banks in the country (and as Michael corrected me they also have a strong Healthcare / Med tech practice). For entrepreneurs who want to learn about how to work with investment banks, how to position yourself to be acquired and what the IPO markets look like this is the episode to

VC 242
article thumbnail

How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

article thumbnail

This Week in VC with Rick Smith of Crosscut Ventures

Both Sides of the Table

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). Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall.

VC 210
article thumbnail

Most impressive thing about the Old Spice Guy ads

This is going to be BIG.

Have you ever had to get creative copy approved by a client? It takes forever and everyone and their mother has an opinion on it. That’s why I think that more so than even doubling Old Spice’s revenues for the month, the most impressive and notable thing about the campaign was the speed of the creative from user tweet to Old Spice guy response. Creating so many public videos that answered user responses in such a short time was the work of an extremely streamlined creative process—one that other

article thumbnail

Daniel Leary on 37Signals, Pricing Business Services vs. Consumption Services, and Getting the customer to invest

This is going to be BIG.

" So we’ve said a few things now: That business-services operate pricing models which do not represent costs but investments, and are viewed as such. That consumption-services (which either aid or directly represent consumption) operate pricing models which represent real costs. That investing in order to generate profit on that investment is popular, and spending money on direct consumption is increasingly not.

investing 199
article thumbnail

Life is 10% How You Make It and 90% How you Take It

Both Sides of the Table

Startups are hard. When you read the press you only read the glamorous bits. You read about Mark Zuckerberg or the guys at FourSquare, Twitter or Zynga. But that’s a bit like reading about your state lottery winner and feeling bummed out because you haven’t won despite years of trying. The reality is that most of you will never hit it BIG yet you’ll lead fulfilled and productive lives.

advice 407
article thumbnail

Statement of Cash Flows vs. Cash Flow Statement

Speaker: Wayne Spivak - President and Chief Financial Officer of SBA * Consulting LTD, Industry Writer, and Public Speaker

The old adages that "cash is king" and "you can’t spend profits" still hold true today. But however well-known these sayings might be, it requires a change in mindset to properly implement a cash flow management system that predicts your business's runaway as accurately as possible. Key to this new mindset is understanding the difference between the Statement of Cash Flows, a historical look at the source and uses of cash, and the Cash Flow Statement, which uses transaction history and forward-l

article thumbnail

Don’t Take the Little Things for Granted

Both Sides of the Table

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of choosing happiness. Today I want to write about a related topic: not taking the little things in life for granted. I promise not to turn this blog into a personal self-help blog! But today is a special day and I’m thinking about this topic so please humor me just one more time. More later in the post.

advice 335
article thumbnail

Doing the Right Things is More Important than Doing Things Right

Both Sides of the Table

Yesterday I wrote a post about top-down versus bottom-up thinking. There is a corollary to that advice, which is “doing the right things is more important than doing things right.&# Sounds simple but in practice I promise you most organization fall into the latter trap. Here’s how it goes: You have a business development group with two people.

advice 323
article thumbnail

Customer Acquisition is Oxygen to a Startup

This is going to be BIG.

The other day, Josh and I met with a very cool company that has some serious traction. They’re more than doubling revenue every quarter and will soon be on track for a million dollar run rate. The only concern was that they didn’t know what their cost of customer acquisition was, nor did they which channels would be most effective, or how much they could acquire out of each channel.

startup 302
article thumbnail

How a Tourist Can Help you with Your Startup

Both Sides of the Table

There’s a famous line about consultants that clients love to repeat, “consultants take your watch and then tell you the time.&#. I suppose there’s some truth to that but of course it’s an over simplification. I used to work for Andersen Consulting (for > 8 years) – mostly building computer systems for large companies in the fixed telecoms, mobile and Internet sectors.

article thumbnail

How to Avoid the Pain and Cost of PCI Compliance While Optimizing Payments

Speaker: P. Andrew Sjogren, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Very Good Security, Matt Doka, Co-Founder and CTO of Fivestars, and Steve Andrews, President & CEO of the Western Bankers Association 

PCI compliance can feel challenging and sometimes the result feels like you are optimizing more for security and compliance than you are for business outcomes. The key is to take the right strategy to PCI compliance that gets you both. In this webinar, we have a great set of panelists who will take you through how Zero Data strategies can be used as part of a well-rounded compliance and security approach, and get you to market much sooner by also allowing for payment optimization.

article thumbnail

Outside directors are a price of investment.

Berkonomics

Once a company founder has tapped the funds available from his or her resources and from friends and family, if the company needs more cash for growth, the most obvious next step is to look for money from angel investors and venture capitalists, typically in the $300,000 TO $3,000,000 range. This money comes with restrictions a founder may not expect, including restrictions upon the sale of founder stock, clauses that require the investor be allowed to sell an equal proportion of stoc

article thumbnail

Anthony Casalena: The best web entrepreneur you've never heard of

This is going to be BIG.

Back in March of 2006, nextNY held it's second social gathering--that time it was at Dewey's Flatiron. This guy comes up to me and says he works at a company called Squarespace. I had heard of it--they were big buyers of Google Adwords and I felt like I had checked out the site before. It seemed like a pretty comprehensive publishing tool. I asked him how many people he had working with him.

article thumbnail

Give it away! Give it away! Give it away now! Why e-mail newsletters are cool, but not if they’re paid.

This is going to be BIG.

Matthew Ingram asked the question today of whether or not people should start an e-mail newsletter. At the same time, two of the most awesome people I know, Mike Galpert and Amanda Peyton , are using Sam Lessin’s letter.ly to create paid e-mail newsletters—effectively nailing the coffin on what were sometimes sparsely updated blogs. I get it. I get why people like Jason Calacanis wanted to stop blogging (even though he really can’t).

mix-use 253
article thumbnail

The best VC networking opportunity ever

This is going to be BIG.

Each day, hundreds of people stuff themselves into my inbox--pitches, career advice pleas, introduction requests. It's almost as if I hand out cash for a living or if my job is to know a lot of people in the NY tech community. oh, wait. that is my job. So, one would assume, then, if someone had the opportunity to a) put me in a position where I'd really owe them a favor. big time b) be able to pitch me or talk out what they're up to, next steps, opportunities, etc w/o it even necessarily countin

article thumbnail

Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in