Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 20, 2010
I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart. I don’t believe that one exists. Every team configuration is different. But I do have more insight into understanding your startup team. This time I thought I’d try and address engineering talent.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 27, 2010
Business plan competitions are the air guitar championships of the startup world. This is the case when the requirements of these events don’t actually include building a real business or product. I mean, you don’t have to build an actual business—you can just mimic the movements and demonstrate something that looks like a startup on paper, without any of the necessary risk taking, lessons learned or even a fraction of the effort—all the stuff that investors like to see.
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Berkonomics
APRIL 13, 2010
Let me illustrate this insight with a personal story. As my enterprise computer software company which produced innovative lodging systems for hotels and resorts grew quickly, we found ourselves straining to keep up with the hiring and training of good customer support representatives, a critical part of the equation then and still so today in the 24 hour environment of hotel front desk operations.
abovethecrowd.com
APRIL 28, 2010
“The clock on the wall’s moving slower My heart it sinks to the ground And the storm that I thought would blow over Clouds the light of the love that I found” – Fool in the Rain, Led Zeppelin More often than not, we here in Silicon Valley are prone to idealism. We see a [.].
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Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 5, 2010
“Staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science&# (Thomas Friedman). I’ve been meaning to write this post since September of last year when Brad Feld first wrote about the The Founders Visa Movement. I commented briefly on his blog and made a mental note to write a blog post.
Startup Catalyst Brief brings together the best content for the entrepreneurial ecosystem from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 28, 2010
Today we had another episode of TWiVC – you can watch the episode here. This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. This week’s guest was David Travers from Rustic Canyon Partners. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 21, 2010
OK, it’s official! I’m now the permanent host for TWiVC (until such time as they kick me off). Thank you to anybody who sent Jason a note on Twitter on my behalf. The episode isn’t yet live but it should be in the morning (probably when you’re reading this) – you can find it here. It was a fun show today, especially Jason’s story at the very end of the episode!
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 22, 2010
This is part of my startup advice series. This post isn’t going to be popular. I’m sure of that. That’s OK. It’s still important advice for startup founders and something that I’m passionate about. And I care more about the debate than trying to be popular. And it’s important because it’s true. I never hire job hoppers.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 17, 2010
Thursday night was the unveiling of the newest batch of Launchpad LA companies. We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.
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Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 8, 2010
Most technology startups seem to be founded by three types of people: product managers, engineers or biz dev types (MBAs and the like). Very few of them are started, in my experience, by sales people and very few early stage companies really understand sales. That’s why I started the Sales & Marketing Series and at one point I will do a bunch of posts on the sales methodology we developed at my first company called PUCCKA.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 8, 2010
I was on This Week in Venture Capital today with Jason Calacanis talking about the big VC deals at the moment and talking about the VC industry. It’s about a 30 minute video (or about as long as it normally takes to read my rambling posts! I’d embed the video but it doesn’t seem to allow you to do this so here’s the link the This Week in Startups, Inaugural show.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 14, 2010
Clean up your own shite. Ok. I know that the tone of the title and post will seem a bit aggressive for a post from a venture capitalist on fund raising. It’s meant to be a bit provocative but the reality is that I give this advice to entrepreneurs all the the time and I usually leave the “e&# off of the end. I learned all of this myself on your side of the table raising money at my first company.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 18, 2010
What do Google Analytics and print newspapers have in common? They’re both one day out of date when you read them. I’ve been using Chartbeat for over a month now to track performance of my blog and I find myself looking at Google Analytics much less these days. In fact, I’m surprised by how antiquated Google Analytics feels. Chartbeat is a relatively young company and product.
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Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 1, 2010
In the past I’ve written on the topic of “ Raising Venture Capital &# but today I’m starting a new series called “ Understanding VC’s.&# My goal is writing this series of to make it easier for you as a startup needing to raise money to understand how venture capital firms work so you can be more efficient and more effective in your process.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 11, 2010
I’m getting a little bit tired of running my events list and seeing some of the best folks sitting behind the paywalls of people profiting off of the community’s attempt to talk to itself. Each week there are so many great events, blog posts, videos, etc. produced by community members that there’s hardly any reason to pay other than a token amount for in person innovation and startup related content.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 2, 2010
This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5 billion under management.&# I don’t really understand why VCs do this since it’s mostly a meaningless number.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 3, 2010
This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. Because it is a “series&# I plan to get into some of the deeper complexities of funds such as “cross over funds&# and “why VC’s hate to price their own deals&# at a later stage.
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This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 14, 2010
I have to admit, when I first saw Unvarnished , the anonymous people review site, I was very concerned. It didn’t really solve a problem I had. In fact, it seemed to create one. I saw it as a problem I now needed to deal with. As soon as I got my invite, I started requesting reviews from people I knew would give me a good recommendation—just so I could pad my score to protect against the inevitable driveby.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 12, 2010
Last week, I got a chance to be the guy on the ground for Open Angel Forum NYC. First off, I have to thank those who made it possible—namely our sponsors and our host. Six companies and twenty angels were able to connect up without the friction and artificial scarcity created by the “pay to play” model and it was all made possible by the good folks at Joyent , Cooley , and Winter Wyman.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 7, 2010
So midway through their rocket ship ride to a million users and beyond, the Foursquare team is going to jump off for $100 million and a chance to work at Yahoo! for the next couple of years? Riiiight. If you believe that, I have a bridge app to sell you. Sure, Yahoo! may be considering buying Foursquare—in the same way I’m also considering dating Lady Gaga.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 22, 2010
Boy did I have an epiphany last night. Every time I talk to a mobile developer, they complain about what a pain in the ass it is to develop for Blackberry—given that so many of the device/carrier combinations require customizations. On top of that, numbers for app downloads on Blackberry trail other platforms. Yesterday, I figured out why. A friend of mine asked me how she could get Twitter on her Blackberry.
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
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 25, 2010
I've said for a while that people learn so much more from failure than they do from success. This post from Keith Nowak is definitely worth a read. "I once read a characterization of startups by Dick Costolo, co-founder of FeedBurner, as going down many dark alleys only to find they are dead ends. In my opinion, dark alleys need to be navigated anywhere there are unknowns and a large possibility of making mistakes.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 19, 2010
“Experience has shown that the next generation of startups will be born in the previous-generation startups. So by concentrating inteligence here, the network can develop and new ideas can develop, around the realities of a changing media business, which is a very different perspective from that of Silicon Valley. That's why it's important that New York not think of itself as an outpost of the tech industry.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 19, 2010
“Many groups have popped up that support women in technology, like Girls in Tech , She’s Geeky , and many others (enumerated in Digiphile’s thoughtful post Why Including women matters for the future of technology and society ). More often than not, these groups are the canned food drives of the women in technology movement. They make you feel better, they might do a little good, but they offer no fundamental change to the system that created the problem in the first place.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 30, 2010
Got the parking spot right in front of the office #frc , originally uploaded by ceonyc.
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
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