Sat.Sep 26, 2015 - Fri.Oct 02, 2015

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Why I Look for High Conviction, not Consensus, in Venture Capital Decisions

Both Sides of the Table

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. The truth is that each firm is different and there isn’t one standard but over the years I’ve talked with enough of my peers to get sense of how many firms work. Often if it’s a bigger firm (say 4 partners or more) and it’s a super small investment for their fund size (let’s say $250-500k when they normally invest $5-7 million) t

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Tips for Investing in Startups if You're a Celebrity

This is going to be BIG.

I've wanted to write this post for a while, but now that my friend Beth has joined WME, feels like the perfect time to do it. I don't really know many celebrities. If I threw a dinner party in NYC, I think I could get Morgan Spurlock, Gabrielle Corcos & Debi Mazar, Carmelo Anthony, and maybe former Met pitcher Glendon Rusch if he happened to be in NYC as we're randomly Twitter friends.

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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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What 10x More Seed Capital Means for Founders

Tomasz Tunguz

Today, 70% of startups in the US that raise a Series A have raised a seed round. That’s up from 50% ten years ago. In the same period, the amount of seed capital invested in the US has increased about 10x from $200M per year to $2B. What does this imply for early stage founders? First, it implies greater competition at the Series A. Larger seed rounds enable a seed stage company to achieve more - more growth, more revenue, more hiring.

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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Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business.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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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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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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The Indicators of True, Strong Customer Demand for a SaaS Product

Tomasz Tunguz

Customer pull is an amazing feeling for a startup. Because the customer demand is visceral, everything seems to move quickly: sales is booking deals quicker than can be on-boarded; product and engineering are rushing to build the features customers request; marketing’s efforts to raise awareness of the business are magnified by word of mouth; and recruiting is doing all they can to fill the looming vacancies.

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What Can You Do if a VC Pulls Their Term Sheet?

Both Sides of the Table

What Can You Do if a VC Pulls Their Term Sheet? I was asked to answer this exact question on Quora and I did so some time ago. The beauty of evergreen content is that it resurfaces all the time and it is as relevant today as it was years ago when I answered it. One of my favorite ways to resurface content is when I see people on Twitter put out a Tweet linking to an old post.

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Startup Best Practices 17 - Strategic Planning Using Your Startup's Fundamental Equation

Tomasz Tunguz

“What is the one equation that describes our business?” asked Scott, our new director at Google, during one of our first meetings. I had been there only for a few quarters, so I was startled when he asked. I had never viewed our business this way, but after he asked the question, I wondered why I hadn’t. It seemed obvious in retrospect.

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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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Why I F **g Hate Unicorns and the Culture They Breed

Both Sides of the Table

Something is rotten in tech startup land. Don’t call me a hater for saying so. It’s not that I’m anti innovation or a disbeliever in disruption or calling it a full-scale bubble or saying every darling startup is going to fail. None of those. Still. Somebody posted too many party fliers. The uninvited crowds have all turned up. The people here don’t respect your parents’ furniture, are throwing beer cans in your back yard and there’s a dude passed out face dow

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