October, 2015

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What To Do When Your Competitor Gets Funded?

Both Sides of the Table

This morning Clutter.io announced they raised $9 million from Sequoia , arguably the best venture capital firm that exists. Congratulations. Sincerely. Conventional wisdom says I shouldn’t tell you this because I invested in their main competitor, MakeSpace. I know my MakeSpace friends will forgive me because I just don’t believe the conventional wisdom is right.

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An Investment Fund for NYC Foodies

This is going to be BIG.

I don't remember whether it was over a meal at Good Fork , Rucola , Martha , or maybe over an Ample Hills ice cream cone, but I've definitely said the words "Wouldn't it be cool if you could setup a way to invest in the growth of the food and beverage scene in Brooklyn--like, the whole thing. Maybe like a fund." Well, my friend Tom Potter, who I know as a fellow kayaker, but who is much better known as the co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery, is making that happen.

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The Market Diversifies: International Innovation Captures Larger Share Of Startup Funding Applications

Gust

In Q3 the global startup ecosystem continued to thrive, with 25% growth over the same quarter last year and up 18% from last quarter, as the innovation economy expands around the world. Quarterly data from Gust, the online platform for the global angel investment industry, reveals that while incumbent leaders show no sign of slowing down, new industries and areas Read more >.

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2015 Pacific Crest SaaS Survey – Part 1

For Entrepreneurs

For the fourth year in a row, we worked together with Pacific Crest Securities, an investment banking firm with a specific focus on SaaS, to survey 305 SaaS companies. This survey represents deep benchmarking data and insights on the growth and operations of the companies in this space. I want to extend my personal thanks to the […].

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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Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business.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.

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Entrepreneurs: Take the time to celebrate your exit.

Berkonomics

We come to the end of this cycle of insights with a thought about how you might view your successful exit from the company you have spent so much effort to build. You’ve worked hard for years to reach the payoff, and the money sure looks good as you contemplate the wire transfer to come, and then watch your bank account fill to a level you only dreamed of during those rough cash flow years.

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What Everyone Should Take Away from Twitter’s 8% Staff Reductions

Both Sides of the Table

Today Twitter announced it had laid off around 336 jobs or 8% of its workforce. Nobody should celebrate, cheer or shout, “it’s about time.” This is about 336 people whose lives are altered and need to begin looking for work, saying goodbye to friends & colleagues and go on that journey of transition that most people dread. I wish all of them well and feel confident that anybody employed at one of the most innovative companies of the past 10 years will land on his or her fe

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RegulatoryKings: Thoughts on the Duel Between Government and Fans

This is going to be BIG.

Full disclosure: I'm an investor in a stealth daily fantasy sports company. Daily fantasy sports have exploded onto the scene in the last couple of years, and recent events have caused regulators to look at the area with increased scrutiny. Generally, creating rules to protect individuals from nefarious business practices or to leverage things like taxes fairly and consistently is a good thing and I support it.

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Challenges and Rewards for Angel Investors

Gust

One of the most common questions we get is: What are the biggest challenges and rewards of angel investing? High net worth individuals become angel investors for a number of reasons, but the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs and provide guidance to founders is typically high on the list. In this video, angel investor Chenoa Farnsworth explains why, interestingly, both the biggest Read more >.

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forEntrepreneurs 2015 SaaS Survey Infographic

For Entrepreneurs

We’re excited to share the forEntrepreneurs SaaS Survey Infographic, which highlights major parts of this year’s SaaS Survey results. With all the data in the survey to help SaaS companies benchmark their growth, we thought it would be useful to show the major insights in a more graphical form. For the full results and analysis, see parts […].

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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.

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The best advice startups will never follow

Berkonomics

Let me tell you a few short hair-raising stories of entrepreneurs who have raised money and regretted it later. Here are some rules that entrepreneurs almost always ignore to their future peril. Don’t take money from relatives who can’t afford to walk away without remorse. Do take money from experienced family members only after you ask them if they are sure three or more separate times.

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5 Mistakes SaaS Startups Often Make with Pricing

Tomasz Tunguz

The purpose of a price is to tax usage of a product. That’s how companies generate revenue. Discovering how to tax a product properly is a perpetual challenge. It’s a moving target and so it requires an ongoing discovery process as the company and market evolve together. These are some mistakes I’ve noticed. Complex or unintuitive pricing model.

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Why @UpfrontVC invested in Disruptive Rental Car Startup @Skurt

Both Sides of the Table

Rental cars. I have never met a person who loved their rental car company or the experience of turning up at an airport, waiting in line, paying a huge fee and then dealing with returns, airport shuttle buses and so forth not to mention half-washed and smelly cars. I think the closest parallel I have is the feeling I had for taxi cabs (inconvenient, smelly, expensive) before Uber.

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How to Build a Successful and Diverse Venture Capital Portfolio Without Really Trying

This is going to be BIG.

After checking out The Information's "open dataset" on diversity in venture capital , I felt pretty disappointed. It didn't include the most important statistic of all--the results! Who is actually building a portfolio whose founders reflect the diversity of the greater population? I went back and calculated the number of companies in the first Brooklyn Bridge Ventures portfolio who have at least one founder who is female, from an underrepresented minority group, or LGBT.

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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

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Raising Capital As A First Time Founder

Gust

A year ago, in mid September 2014, I walked out of a Starbucks in San Francisco with the very first check from an angel investor for Glassbreakers. Though it was only $5,000, it was enough to prove to myself and my co-founder, Lauren Mosenthal, that we could actually fundraise for our startup. We already had 1,000 women signed Read more >. The post Raising Capital As A First Time Founder appeared first on The Gust Blog.

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2015 Pacific Crest SaaS Survey – Part 2

For Entrepreneurs

Last week I posted the results from Part 1 of our survey in which 300+ SaaS companies shared data on their growth and go-to-market strategies. This week I’m sharing the results from Part 2 of the survey where we compare application delivery methods, operational costs and gross margins, contract terms, churn rates, capital requirements and accounting methods.

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Angels and VCs: Don’t be greedy even if you can.

Berkonomics

Sometimes the end game or sale of the company is not a happy event for the early investors, including the entrepreneur or the founders. Especially when outside investors, venture capitalists or angels have put in substantial money, and the sales price is not enough to give them a reasonable return for the time and money invested, these investors can be – in a word – greedy.

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8 Customer Discovery Questions to Validate Product Market Fit for Your Startup

Tomasz Tunguz

When I was a PM at Google, we conducted customer research often to understand our customers’ opinions on AdSense. In 2005, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were vying to win dominant share of advertising pages across large publishers. Customer knowledge, both qualitative and quantitative, informed product development, and that research became a key part of AdSense’s success.

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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

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What Should You Make of the Web Summit Controversy? A View Behind the Scenes

Both Sides of the Table

Like many of you I read the Is Web Summit a Scam article making the rounds this week. I have attended Web Summits three times – it is not a scam. Let me get that out of the way. It’s a big conference and all big conferences charge money, make money and serve a diverse set of needs. I even wrote about my experiences attending Web Summit , something I rarely ever write about.

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Winning is the Best Revenge

This is going to be BIG.

Over the weekend, the Mets, and Ruben Tejada's leg, got the short end of a controversial play. At best, the play was against the rules and both the runner and the batter should have been called out. At worst, it was a dirty play intended to knock over another player at any cost. Lots of fans on Twitter are calling for bean balls in tonight's game, but the Mets know that would only take Matt Harvey out of the game and send it to the Mets bullpen early--a recipe for disaster.

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Ask A Founder: Startup Lessons Learned from Planitar’s Kevin Klages

Gust

Kevin Klages, Co-Founder and CEO of Planitar, raised a $500,000 seed round after four pitches to angel investors. We sat down with Kevin as he shared what his fundraising journey was like, the startup lessons he learned, and his advice to fellow founders. Here is what he had to say: HK: Tell me a little about Planitar. How did you Read more >. The post Ask A Founder: Startup Lessons Learned from Planitar’s Kevin Klages appeared first on The Gust Blog.

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Relax for the same result

Derek Sivers

A few years ago, I lived in Santa Monica, California, right on the beach. There’s a great bike path that goes along the ocean for seven and a half miles. So, fifteen miles round trip. On weekday afternoons, it’s almost empty. It’s perfect for going full speed. So a few times a week, I’d get on my bike and go as fast as I could for the fifteen-mile loop.

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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.

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Raise money on good news

Berkonomics

The first rule for raising money is to do it on good news – right when sales are increasing at an increasing rate. Or when a major customer signs a significant deal. Or when something happens that makes an investor think this company is about to break out. Unfortunately, the longer you wait without significant upward news, the harder it is to get attention.

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Using Vaporware to Validate a Product Idea and Generate Demand for Your Startup

Tomasz Tunguz

In 1964, IBM announced a mainframe computer family called the System 360. The mainframe wouldn’t ship for another three years, but the announcement reduced the mainframe sales of their competitor , Control Data Corporation, sufficiently to warrant an FBI investigation. And so a new marketing technique was born. To be clear, there are many different forms of vaporware.

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What Makes a Great Business Partner?

Both Sides of the Table

A while back when I was reading the press I saw a quote from Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins that was simple, yet profound. He was quoted as saying, “Being a great partner is as important as being smart or being right.”. I liked it so much I wrote it down and tried to think about what it meant to me and I promised myself I would write about that one day.

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late bloomer, not a loser.

500 Hats

(this post was originally published on svbtle.

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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