Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

'Nearly four months ago we rebranded at Upfront Ventures. You can watch the video above for a very brief overview of why we rebranded and where we see our place in the VC ecosystem along with what has changed in our industry. The link for the video is here and if you want a short firsthand view on our changes it’s a great resource. I often advise startup companies not to try and pin all of your brand equity into an announcement.

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This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

'Yesterday, I saw this tweet come across my screen. "The venture capital game has become about branding yourself so you can get into a handful of hot deals." -- @Naval on stage with @Jason. — Brian Alvey (@brianalvey) November 10, 2013. This feels like a West Coast mentality, because deals seem to feel "hot" more often out there--I believe because of founder pedigree.

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Gust

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

'Image via eesiflo.com. I still get business plans, looking for an investor, that say all too clearly that the primary “use of funds” will be to do research and development (R&D) on some promising new technology, like superconductivity or cancer cures. Entrepreneurs forget that investors are looking for commercial products to make money, rather than R&D sunk costs, so investment hopes are sunk as well.

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development technology entrepreneurs investing 148

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

'By David Steakley. Our guest insight this week comes from David Steakley, a past President of the Houston Angel Network, and a reformed management consultant. He is an active angel investor, and he manages several angel funds in Texas. Hang on, David tells it like he sees it! – DB. Business plans are interesting. But, as a famous field marshal (1) said, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

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technology

Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

Earlier this week, I chatted with a friend of mine who has founded an incredibly successful business, which he and his co-founder have been scaling impressively. I asked him about his biggest learning over the past few years. He said before having started his company and having built the team, he perceived management as a Band-Aid, as a fix for something wrong in the organizational design, communication or day-to-day operations of the company.

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Gust

NOVEMBER 9, 2013

'Interestingly, the large majority of venture capitalists are very friendly. It’s for the same reason that as a group, orthodontists tend almost universally to be more friendly than surgeons. ["Whaaaa?!?"! I hear you ask. Think about it for a bit, and particularly if you''ve had personal experiences with either/both groups.]. The latter profession sees you by referral from another doctor, operates on you while you’re asleep, and rarely sees you again.

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ventures VC investing investment 146

Gust

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

'Equity-based crowdfunding (that is, providing regular people with the opportunity to purchase stock in private companies) will not be legal in the US until the first quarter of 2013 at the earliest. At that time, any company planning to operate as a “funding portal” will have to comply with an extensive set of rules and regulations established by the U.S.

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Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

Constrained by a limited budget while seeking to grow as quickly as possible, startup founders must decide how to balance growing their engineering teams with their sales & marketing teams. To help inform those decisions, I’ve benchmarked the relative sizes of the sales and engineering teams of the 36 publicly-traded SaaS companies from founding to IPO, typically 7 years later.

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SaaS startup media development 66

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 15, 2013

'When I saw Coin , the all-in-one card, buying it was a no brainer. Instead of carrying three credit cards, a bank card, and a host of other random plastic in my wallet, I get to carry one card. No convincing my friends to join some social payment network. No shaking, waving, bumping, twirling or any other things I''ve never done to have to pay for anything.

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development

Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Steven Blank wrote yesterday about a novel way of depicting a startup’s competitive landscape in a pitch deck, called a petal diagram. While the petal diagram is a great way of describing an ecosystem or a go-to-market strategy, I don’t think it’s a great way to show a competitive landscape because petal diagrams don’t communicate the startup’s unique way of competing in the market.

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Gust

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

'Startups: Investors expect new marketing. The fundamentals still apply but tools and realities are different now. If you don’t understand the broader implications of social media, content marketing, curation, engagement, and relationships, then you desperately need a great reason why not. And don’t think you can just wave your hands at it. You have to really know it. .

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media pitching startup strategy 142

Gust

NOVEMBER 15, 2013

'Wondering how to get investors’ attention or how to deliver a perfect pitch? Gust has teamed up with LivePlan to equip you with the best tips for pitching investors and expert advice to increase your chances of getting funded. Join us for this revealing webinar, How to Pitch and Get Funded, on November 20 th at 1pm ET (10am PT). The webinar will be led by Gust’s CEO, David S.

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Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

In response to yesterday’s post on management design patterns, many readers asked for examples of best practices. So I’m going to write about the management best practices I have been taught and I have observed in startups. This is the first post of that series. The first management technique is called Situational Management , one that my wife, a terrific manager at Google, taught me.

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opportunity

Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

At the bottom of this blog, there’s an inocuous sharing bar with links to share this post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, HackerNews and subscribe by email and RSS. 1.5% of visitors click on one of these buttons. Despite the similarity of the buttons and the clicks, the value they generate as sharing tools varies dramatically. The chart above shows data from the widget on this blog for the past 30 days, comparing the number of clicks on each button and the traffic that results from that ch

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