Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

MakeSpace , the leading provider of next-generation storage for consumers, today announced an additional $17.5 million in funding on TechCrunch led by Harmony Partners and Upfront Ventures to double its footprint of 3 cities (New York, Chicago & Washington DC) to 6 in 2016. We raised this capital in what has increasingly become a difficult market for fund raising so I’d like to share with you some details on how we get it done.

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strategy peer-to-peer incumbents real estate 282

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Partnership investing is boring. You give someone your money and, once a quarter, they give you a report that says what they did with your money. That's because, for the most part, fund investors fall into two categories: institutions and individuals. If you're an institution, you basically care about returns and that's it. You run X amount of capital and Y percentage of that is allocated to venture capital.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

This article was written for the March 2016 issue of Octane magazine. Sometimes all it takes is a little spark to start a revolution. Just ask Stacey Brewer and Ryan Harrison , EO Johannesburg members who are redefining the educational ecosystem in South Africa. In this special feature, the co-founders of SPARK Schools discuss the state of education in their home country, the far-reaching value of their hybrid learning model and how, through entrepreneurship, they’re changing lives, one student

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Gust

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

Hudson Valley Startup Fund brings together a network of the region’s successful business and community leaders to give back, supporting the launch of the next Hudson Valley visionaries. We sat down with fund managers Chad Gomes, Johnny LeHane and Paul Hakim as they shared insights into their investment process, what they look for in both group members and startups, and.

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Lack of digitalization decreases business competitiveness. To thrive, embracing modern solutions becomes essential. The approach to digitalization often aligns with a company's business model. This shift not only boosts productivity but also automates processes and improves security. The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.

technology

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

The partners at Benchmark are delighted to announce that Scott Belsky has joined the firm as our newest general partner. It is rare for us to encounter a partner candidate who has so much experience as an operator, investor, and advisor at such a young age. We have confidence that Scott can be one of the best investors of his generation, and we are excited by the opportunity to have him as a member of our team.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

There is much talk these days that startup valuations have decreased and may continue to do so and that the amount of time it takes to fund raise may take longer. As I have pointed out in previous posts , 91% of VCs surveyed believe prices are declining (30% believe substantially) and 77% believe that funding will take longer than it has in the past.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Did you know that it's illegal to trade onion futures? You can thank the Onion Futures Act of 1954. These are the kinds of things you learn when you back founders that are essentially students of agricultural commodities to build a new exchange. Their exchange will " use the tools of financial engineering to cultivate financial security in underserved markets, where there exists unique idiosyncratic risk.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

“What if we created a research lab and business incubator that took these people with learning differences and put [them] together? What if we gave them a place where they could figure out what their true passions were and then turn those passions into a livelihood? ” – Rick Fiery. This was the shared dream of Rick Fiery and Tom Bergeron, the co-founders of InventiveLabs , a multi-track research center that supports Inventives, people who have non-traditional learning styles and are looking to m

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Derek Sivers

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

Imagine that you hand someone your camera, and ask him to take a photo of you. He does, but when you look at the photo later, you notice that he took a photo of himself by mistake. Imagine you’ve got a big question like, “Should I quit my job and start my own company?” You go ask the advice of some successful people you respect. Because they can’t know everything about you and your unique situation, they’ll give advice that’s really just a reflection of their own current situation.

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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.

development

OnStartups

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

I'm doing an "Ask Me Anything' (AMA) session on Product Hunt tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb 23rd, 2016 at 10 am PST, 1pm EST). Would love for you to sign-up early, because I'm insecure, egotistical and I want to impress Ryan Hoover. Would love for a decent number of people to sign-up. Or an indecent number would be even better. 350 have signed up already (before this blog post was published).

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Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 27, 2016

A dollar is a dollar is a dollar, right? Not quite. Not all revenue dollars are created equal, but all gross profit dollars are. Gross profit, not revenue, is the metric companies should be using to compare themselves. Ultimately, gross profits account for more than 55% of the forward multiple of publicly traded SaaS companies after normalizing for revenue growth.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

I recently sat down with Troy Carter to talk about what he does and why he believes it is applicable to venture capital. The “what” is well known in LA circles – Troy discovered a little known young singer named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aka Lady Gaga and helped her launch her career. The “what” Troy Carter does also led him to be an early investor in Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Warby Parker and several other great startups of the last era.

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For Entrepreneurs

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Intro Sales compensation is a more complex topic for SaaS/subscription revenue companies. Unlike traditional software sales, the job of sales doesn’t end when a new customer signs a contract. Instead, it is crucial to retain customers over many years, as that is how you maximize your revenues. In this blog post we will explore how.

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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.

opportunity

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

This article was written by EO Vancouver member Calvin Johnson. I’ve been an EO member for 15 years, but it wasn’t until 2014 that I became involved with the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA). I had served many roles previously on the BC Children’s Hospital Board, but I wanted to transition into something that engaged young entrepreneurs – and I found one.

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Gust

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

For three out of four quarters in 2015, New York City’s tech ecosystem has led with more startup funding requests than any other region in the country, including California’s long reigning Silicon Valley. After a dip in Q3, New York rebounded in Q4 claiming nearly 20% of every funding application around the country. California ranked second with 17.8% of total.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity? There are always gate keepers whose job it is to filter out the inconsequential or inappropriate, and allow through those with most promise. That said, gate keepers can and do block some great opportunities before the decision maker even has a chance to use his or her expertise to evaluate.

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Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 11, 2016

When we discuss payback periods in SaaS, we implicitly mean customer payback periods. How much time does it take for us to recoup the capital outlay we invest in acquiring a new customer? But, there’s a second and equally important payback period – the payback period on hiring a new account executive. Let’s take a hypothetical SaaS startup that sells a $20k product at a 75% gross margin.

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Advertiser: ZoomInfo

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

B2B marketing

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2016

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those others that have been tried” – Winston Churchill. At the Upfront Summit this past week there was an electric interview of Fred Wilson led by well-researched and artful Dan Primack of Fortune Magazine that ended up making news. The newsworthy moment was when Fred expressed his view that companies like Uber should go public.

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For Entrepreneurs

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Hiring a strong executive management team is one of the most proven ways to ensure startup success. Yet, hiring executives is a very different undertaking than hiring for other roles in your company and requires a different process, skill-set, and time commitment. There are three reasons for this: First, the stakes are higher. The right.

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startup 140

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

By Andrew Armstrong, an Octane blog contributor. Are you an engineer who likes analyzing problems, solving them and working with all types of people? Engineering consulting might be for you. It’s easier than ever for an one-person operation to get started, with the help of cloud-based collaborative tools and simple, low-cost methods of communication.

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Derek Sivers

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

You have something you want to change: a thought process or habit you want to fix. Let’s use the metaphor of a bunch of bricks on a seesaw. Right now all the bricks are stacked on one side. This is the way you have been. To make a change, most people don’t do enough. If you do something small and sensible, it’s like moving one brick to the other side.

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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

financing

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Wouldn’t it be magic if we could find one (unique to us) question to ask people passing the booth or table as they pass in the aisle of the trade show? I asked a number of exhibitors that question recently, and received some surprising responses, along with tips for “reeling them in…”. “Is your mom OK?” was offered by one who said it always worked for him.

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Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

At SaaStr 2016 and SaaS Office Hours in New York , I shared an analysis of the fastest growing SaaS companies over the last 3 years. In particular, I benchmarked the revenue, growth rates and round size characteristics of these businesses at their Series A. I’ve embedded the slides here. Benchmarking Exceptional Series A SaaS Companies from Tomasz Tunguz.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

“This is the year the tortoise may gain on the hare.” There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets – both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. They point to some widely known facts: financings & valuations are up massively over the past 7 years and non-VC money has entered the system.

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For Entrepreneurs

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

SaaS/subscription businesses are much more complex than traditional businesses, and SaaS performance cannot be measured in the same way as traditional businesses are measured. Based on a talk given at the SaaStr Annual Conference in San Francisco, this slide deck offers a comprehensive and detailed look at the key metrics that are needed to understand and.

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SaaS startup 113

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.

strategy