Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 22, 2014
'Picking a VC is hard. You don’t really have much to go on to decide who would make a good fit. Reputation of firm? Of partner? Deals done in your industry? It’s a bit of all of these. I had an enjoyable conversation this morning with a young team straight out of college this morning and they were calling to ask advice on how to approach fund raising (angels vs.
This is going to be BIG.
JANUARY 22, 2014
'I''m announcing two things today. First, I''ve finished raising the first Brooklyn Bridge Ventures fund--tallying $8.3 million. This is what I set out to do just about two years ago when I first broke out on my own and started raising, so I''m thrilled to say that it has finally happened. I''m not going to do too much of a victory lap, though, because it bugs me a little when startups do it, and I''m a startup, too.
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Gust
JANUARY 19, 2014
'Image via Flickr (Creative Commons). Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the best entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. On the average, the entrepreneurs I know are living on Ramen noodles. But one thing they all seem to have in common is a love for learning and change. They rush in with a passion to better the world, and money is just an indication of their progress.
Derek Sivers
JANUARY 18, 2014
This essay is adapted from an excerpt of the great book “ A Geek in Japan ” by Héctor Garcia. It is the first chapter of my new Japan 2014 book. If three Japanese people are talking together, and a fourth one joins the conversation, he will apologize upon approach for breaking the harmony of the group. Why? In Japan, everything looks like it works to perfection.
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Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 18, 2014
'In my recent post “ Why Am I So Lucky? Why You Need to Be Sure You’re Not the Sucker ” I talked about how VCs (or other investors) get deals sent to them and how to interpret a referral. I tried to make a simple point: People have motives when they send you a deal. Sometimes those motives are positive (they really want the chance to work with you, they think you have unique skills) and sometimes they are less positive (their first-tier of “go to” referrals passed on the
Startup Catalyst Brief brings together the best content for the entrepreneurial ecosystem from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Gust
JANUARY 22, 2014
'This is obviously a softball question that I’ve been Asked to Answer, as I’m the Founder/CEO of Gust. The answer, of course, is Gust —because that’s exactly the purpose behind the platform! Gust is the infrastructure that underlies much of the professional world of early stage finance. It is used by hundreds of thousands of companies in 195 countries to organize all of their investor relations material; it is used by over a thousand angel investor networks, venture capital
Derek Sivers
JANUARY 20, 2014
This essay is by Jeremy Wellard, who is based in Hanoi. This is the first chapter of my new Vietnam 2014 book. The only thing most people know of Vietnam is the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, they call it the American War, and it’s just old history. There is so much more to this youthful, thriving country. Vietnam has long been considered the cultural and artistic heart of Asia, and the Vietnamese are the “Italians of Asia”.
Tomasz Tunguz
JANUARY 20, 2014
As recently as six months ago, it was easy to disregard the Internet of Things (IoT) as just a theoretical market that Cisco measured in the trillions , but whose potential never seemed to materialize. That’s all changing. The past year ushered in a new era for the Internet of Things for three reasons. First, venture capitalists invested nearly $1B of capital in the IoT in 2013, more than 3% of all VC investments by dollars.
This is going to be BIG.
JANUARY 20, 2014
'With the multi-billion dollar acquisition of Nest, people are talking a lot these days about the connected home. It came up at the Canary board meeting the other day. Canary is the world''s most easy to install home security device , connecting to its homeowners via the cloud. As the lead investor in the company''s seed round, you''d think I''d be really bullish about the connected home, especially after their record Indiegogo pre-sale netted them almost $2 million in purchases.
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Gust
JANUARY 18, 2014
'I’ve written on this topic previously, including David S. Rose’s answer to Startups: What is the worst startup pitch ever? While I’ve never laughed outright during a pitch, I’ve certainly had quite a few occasions where I had to work hard not to wince. The problems with bad pitches tend to fall into the following major categories: The content is just bad, off-base or not thought-through.
Derek Sivers
JANUARY 20, 2014
This is the first chapter of my new Singapore 2014 book. When I tell people I live in Singapore, the most common misunderstandings I hear are: “How can you live in that sterile squeaky-clean police state?”. “Isn’t that where they cane people for chewing gum?”. “Disneyland with a death penalty! Haha!”. “What part of China is that in?”. I’m not surprised when people misunderstand Singapore, because it requires a little explanation.
Tomasz Tunguz
JANUARY 21, 2014
While the phrase data scientist may be growing exponentially in its usage , and the number of data scientists job requisitions following a similar trend , the definition of the term is hard to pin down precisely. I wasn’t sure I could define it well until I watched a talk by Hilary Mason , former chief scientist at Bitly, called Dirty Secrets of Data Science at a NYC meetup.
Berkonomics
JANUARY 23, 2014
'Some businesses are built around a single idea. And sometimes that idea is just too small a slice of the big picture to be interesting to investors. There was a recent investor event where I was keynote speaker, on stage only after several panels of experts had wowed the audience with their predictions and observations. One of the panelists made a point that resonated with me.
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Gust
JANUARY 22, 2014
'This is obviously a softball question that I’ve been Asked to Answer, as I’m the Founder/CEO of Gust. The answer, of course, is Gust —because that’s exactly the purpose behind the platform! Gust is the infrastructure that underlies much of the professional world of early stage finance. It is used by hundreds of thousands of companies in 195 countries to organize all of their investor relations material; it is used by over a thousand angel investor networks, venture capital
Derek Sivers
JANUARY 20, 2014
This essay is by Daniel Ziv , who has worked in Indonesia for 14 years as a journalist, editor, and now filmmaker. He wrote the bestselling book “ Jakarta Inside Out ” and directed the award-winning documentary film JALANAN , about the lives of three Jakarta street musicians. This is the first chapter of my new Indonesia 2014 book. Indonesia is the world’s 4th biggest country by population, but is still a work in progress — a beta version.
Tomasz Tunguz
JANUARY 21, 2014
When I worked as an engineer, I loved crafting code and feeling the satisfaction of having built something each day. But there was one thing about coding I never grew to love, despite its importance: forecasting my coding time. Every two weeks, I trudged into a planning meeting that exposed my incompetent forecasting. During these meetings, each person in turn would review their commitments for the last two weeks and provide an update.
Gust
JANUARY 22, 2014
'Academic snobs such as myself often place a lot of value on hard skills when hiring. No news here. Of course, we also look for great attitude and fit, given that so much – if not all – one conquers at the workplace nowadays is the result of collaboration and teamwork. While most people in managerial positions agree with this approach at a hiring moment, there are often different perspectives when it comes to a potential firing moment.
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Gust
JANUARY 19, 2014
'Image via Flickr (Creative Commons). Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the best entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. On the average, the entrepreneurs I know are living on Ramen noodles. But one thing they all seem to have in common is a love for learning and change. They rush in with a passion to better the world, and money is just an indication of their progress.
Gust
JANUARY 18, 2014
'I’ve written on this topic previously, including David S. Rose’s answer to Startups: What is the worst startup pitch ever? While I’ve never laughed outright during a pitch, I’ve certainly had quite a few occasions where I had to work hard not to wince. The problems with bad pitches tend to fall into the following major categories: The content is just bad, off-base or not thought-through.
Gust
JANUARY 22, 2014
'Academic snobs such as myself often place a lot of value on hard skills when hiring. No news here. Of course, we also look for great attitude and fit, given that so much – if not all – one conquers at the workplace nowadays is the result of collaboration and teamwork. While most people in managerial positions agree with this approach at a hiring moment, there are often different perspectives when it comes to a potential firing moment.
Tomasz Tunguz
JANUARY 19, 2014
Each year the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters release data characterizing the state of the startup market. I’ve analyzed the 2013 data and there are three important trends I observed. All in all, the startup exit market is quite healthy. Startup exit values are increasing more than 7% per year, on average. The number of exits is flat-to-down during the ten year period I studied.
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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