Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Upfront Ventures was created 20 years ago as one of the original VC funds in Los Angeles. Back then only 15% of our dollars were invested locally whereas today 50% of our dollars are invested in LA. 10 years ago we found ourselves trying to persuade LPs and VCs that it was worth spending more time getting to know the LA market and now the most common refrain that I hear from them is “there really is something going on in LA.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

By Jenelle Isaacson, an EO Portland member and founder and CEO of Living Room Realty in Portland, Oregon. On the Road. After graduating from college, I started a punk band called Spread Eagle with three girlfriends. I was the lead singer and played guitar. It wasn’t that we loved punk rock; it was just all we could play. That’s the beauty of punk rock.

real estate 130

real estate communities entrepreneurs enablement 130

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

When do you sell your company? Obviously we all want to sell at the top. And there is the problem. How do you know when you are at or near that right point to sell for maximum value? Those of us in the business of calculating (guessing) this mythical peak in value often make the same mistake as our entrepreneurs. We hang on just a little bit longer, expecting continued or accelerating growth and value as in previous periods of the same.

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sustainability board accelerator entrepreneurs 102

propel(x)

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

Each and every one of us has been touched by our national lab system in more ways than we realize. That’s especially the case with the Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), whose innovations and cutting edge technologies continue to impact us in surprising ways. They help us parallel park and make our cars safer via crash simulation. They fund satellite imagery of the world around us (does Google Earth ring a bell?).

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technology

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

Advances in machine learning are transforming the software world. Two of the most exciting applications of machine learning are speech recognition and natural language processing. After researching the space for more than a year, we are thrilled to announce our investment in and partnership with Chorus , a pioneer in speech analysis for sales. Chorus has a unique technology that enables it to listen to inside sales phone calls and provide real-time feedback to salespeople while they are speaking

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investing investment enablement innovation 44

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

It was only a year ago that many in the Venture Capital industry were predicting that “winter was coming” and to be fair the author of this post was chief amongst them. Yet as we enter February 2017 the VC funding markets are booming, Snap, Inc has filed for its IPO, AppDynamics was just purchased for $3.7 billion by Cisco and the only winter that can be found is at the ski resorts following California’s epic snowy and rainy January.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Bryan Luoma is an EO Accelerator (EOA) participant who owns a CAD drafting business based in the New York metro area. Bryan and his employees credit the EO Accelerator program with building his confidence and expertise as an entrepreneur scaling his business. See more EOA stories and learn more! EO Accelerator Stories: Bryan Luoma from EO Network on Vimeo.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 23, 2017

Have you figured out what you want to have, or to be, when you reach the end of your personal run in this business life? It is a fair question. Most of us work in our businesses, either as managers or owners, and rarely step outside to think about how this will end in a perfect world. Investors call this discussion “exit planning” and of course they include themselves in the.

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health ventures investing investment 102

For Entrepreneurs

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

This presentation is from my talk at the 2017 SaaStr Annual conference in San Francisco. It offers an overview of a simple model to understand a SaaS business and the key levers a CEO can pull to get the most impact. The presentation covers: Optimizing the SaaS Funnel: Get inside your customer’s head Break down.

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SaaS startup 160

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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

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 14, 2017

We’ve taught computers to do many things. We’ve researched how to teach them to identify cats, spot fraudulent charges, even categorize cucumbers. But what can we apply in our daily lives that computers have taught us? That is the premise of the book called Algorithms to Live By. Which of the advances in computer science can be applied to laundry, choosing an executive assistant, picking the best strategic plan and optimizing your schedule?

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frameworks strategy investing investment 44

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 20, 2017

There are a lot of relationships that would be a little weird if they hadn't become commonplace--the kind of thing where someone raised by wolves might not adjust to so easily. A waiter requests money from you at the end of a meal, a doctor looks into your open mouth, and demanding strangers get into your car if it's yellow and has a number on the roof.

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VC pitching venture capital board 153

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

Every tech or major news journal in the country is preparing to write their Snap, Inc (creators of Snapchat, Spectacles, etc) stories and many of them seem to want a “How does it feel to have missed this investment story.” I won’t speak to most of them due to time and also due to the fact that I simply am not the story and don’t want to pretend like I am.

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investing investment VC pitching 214

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 24, 2017

By Cameron Herold, founder of COO Alliance and author of Double Double and Meetings Suck. I launched the COO Alliance because I recognized the critical role that the chief operating officer (COO) position plays for the chief executive officer (CEO). A COO will produce a powerful and positive impact on your business. Entrepreneurs are visionaries, but they often lack focus on the details.

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consulting energy entrepreneurs financing 130

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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

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

One thing a senior manager can count on is that someday, something will go right, very right. Well, after all the disappointments, pressure and outright failures, this is NEWS. So we tend to go overboard a bit. As a member of the board, I’ve received calls on weekends, at night and texts at hours I didn’t even think existed – from CEOs who couldn’t control the euphoria.

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board accelerator 97

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2017

It’s easy to find yourself caught in the trap of just GSD (getting s**t done) and not stepping back to be thoughtful about whether you’d benefit from doing fewer things but doing those things truly well. It’s the parable of the tree-chopping team that is so focused on efficiency of how fast it can fell a tree that it doesn’t bother to make sure it is clearing the forest in the right direction when one person actually stops the constant cutting to climb a tree and make sure they’re cutting in the

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media strategy innovation founder 164

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Union Square Ventures (USV) has been one of the most successful venture capital firms of the past 10–15 years and continues to be a leader in our industry. Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ).

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leadership VC venture capital ventures 161

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 20, 2017

Founded in 2006, Mulesoft is an 850 person company based in San Francisco that builds data integration tools. The company started originally as an open-source product and then focused on its paid offering. Today, the business generates nearly $200 million annually in revenue, and is growing at 70%. The business filed to go public last week , and the documents reveal a very impressive business operating at scale.

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SaaS financing finance investing 40

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

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 4, 2017

Win probability charts like the one above have become the icons of popular predictive data analysis. I love data, but let me whisper a heresy to you. I detest these charts. I Instead of provoking thought, insight and questions, they close minds. They support the ideas of inevitability, of odds too great to overcome. Congratulations to the Patriots who faced a 99% probability of losing the game, but passed the ball down the field into the endzone twice, and rendered this fallacious prediction wor

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data analysis SaaS networking startup founder 40

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

By Ashton Bishop, CEO at Step Change. What is the number one fear leaders have ? It’s being found out—having a perceived incompetency uncovered. This fear is called impostor syndrome. If you have these concerns, you are not alone. I had mild dyslexia as a child, and it made me feel stupid. School was punishing. Even through my 20s and 30s, no matter what I did, I often felt the fear of being found out.

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leadership disruption entrepreneurs networking 130

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

Cassandra Bailey is an EO Philadelphia member and founder of Slice Communications. Learn more about EO today! “In the first ten months since I joined EO, both my business and professional experience have changed significantly for the better. The people I’ve met through EO and the programs they offer, such as Forum, the retreat, and all the events and speakers I’ve been exposed to, have been the most impactful things that EO has provided me and my business, Slice Communications. .

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hospitality leadership entrepreneurs opportunity 130

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

“Look around. Do you have six or seven friends that have a business that’s the same size as yours that you meet with monthly? If you don’t, then you definitely should join EO,” says Sara Baldwin. Sara joined Entrepreneurs’ Organization more than five years ago, and her only regret is not joining sooner. Learn more about EO today! “It’s kind of lonely running a business and I didn’t know very many other people who also ran businesses,” she explains.

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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

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 3, 2017

By Caryn Kopp, Chief Door Opener at Kopp Consulting. A sales message designed for one situation will not necessarily work well in another. For example, you may have perfected your 30-second elevator speech (or “30-second commercial,” as it’s often called). This works great if you are actually in an elevator and have someone’s complete attention. But it will get you those glazed looks if you try to work 30 seconds of monologue into a conversation in the buffet line at a networking event.

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consulting opportunity networking pitching 130

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 2, 2017

It is no secret that the IRS looks carefully below the surface for personal use of company assets (including cash) in its corporate income tax audits. This insight addresses more the impact of such behavior upon the actions of employees and others who observe that behavior from a senior manager or owner of a business – and know that they cannot say anything about it without jeopardizing their jobs.

culture 97

culture financing finance entrepreneurs 97

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

There are three ways to create negative churn that I have observed in the market. First, usage expansion. Second, feature expansion. Third, product expansion. Usage expansion is the most common way to create negative churn. Utility based pricing models like buying SMS credits on Twilio, or compute on Amazon or data processing on Mulesoft lend themselves to gradually increasing account sizes, as customers use more and more of the product.

strategy 43

strategy SaaS startup opportunity 43

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The public markets have changed the way they value SaaS companies. The median forward revenue multiple for SaaS business reached its peak in February 2014, fell to its nadir two years later, and has since recovered, hovering at around five times forward revenue – where it has remained with little variance over the last six months. However, that’s not the whole story.

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SaaS incumbents startup 40

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