Sat.May 09, 2015 - Fri.May 15, 2015

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My Investment in Hungryroot: A Tasty Lesson in Products vs. Services

This is going to be BIG.

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures recently joined Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Crosslink Capital, and KarpReilly in Hungryroot 's $2mm seed round. The NYC based company makes ready-to-cook meals comprised of 100% organic, fresh-cut vegetable noodles paired with all-natural chef-designed sauces, toppings and optional pre-roasted proteins--and they're delicious. The food has become a staple of my diet, which wasn't the case after trying various food delivery services out on the market.

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The Most Important Advice I Could Give You About Unicorns

Both Sides of the Table

*. Unicorns. The most overused word in the technology industry today. And they aren’t even f **g real. That is how absurd thing have gotten. No, I take that back. THIS is how absurd things have gotten: “I have to raise at a billion-dollar valuation” “Why? You don’t have the revenue or profit to support that valuation.” “But if I don’t I won’t be able to recruit the best people in the market.

advice 360
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Tips For An Effective Co-Founder Relationship

Onevest

By Tim Houghten What really makes for an effective, and lasting co-founder relationship? Is the magical pixie dust that gives co-founder relationships wings really all about eHarmony style data matching? Or like a successful, and long-lived “celebrity marriage,” is it the result of a strong pre-nup, regular date nights, and a lot of patience and willingness to forgive?

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Why Does Startup Pricing Vary by Location?

Gust

Entrepreneurs seem genuinely surprised to find that investors in Peoria or Little Rock are not willing to invest in startup companies at Silicon Valley prices. After all, they just read in TechCrunch that investors funded a company similar to theirs at an $8 million pre-money valuation! The valuation of startup companies shouldn’t be impacted by location, should they?

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Digitalization: 5 Tech Updates That Will Help You Survive The Recession & Thrive

Lack of digitalization decreases business competitiveness. To thrive, embracing modern solutions becomes essential. The approach to digitalization often aligns with a company's business model. This shift not only boosts productivity but also automates processes and improves security. The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.

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Disrupting the Screen: Backing Tinkergarten to Get Kids Out to Play

This is going to be BIG.

A little more than a year ago, I got a note from Brian Fitzgerald, a Product Manager I met while I was at First Round. He was "taking time with family" to figure out what's next. Most people take that to mean that they'll stop spending as much time with their family and go on to work at another startup or be a founder themselves. Brian, on the other hand, doubled down on family and decided to work on the side project he started with his wife Meg.

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Curation is Dead. Long Live Curation!

Onevest

By Tim Houghten The Curated Content Debate & Importance of Curated Investment Opportunities, and Investors As we state several times at 1000 Angels , the private investor network that connects startups with investors, there are many risks involved with investing in startups, but curated opportunities and investors can help minimize those risks.

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How to Build a Unicorn From Scratch – and Walk Away with Nothing.

Gust

This is a grim fairy tale about a mythical company and its mythical founder. While I concocted this story, I did so by drawing upon my sixteen years of experience as a venture capitalist, plus the fourteen years I spent before that as an entrepreneur. I’m going to use some pretty simple math and some pretty basic terms to create Read more >. The post How to Build a Unicorn From Scratch – and Walk Away with Nothing. appeared first on The Gust Blog.

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Why Lawsuits Are On the Rise at Startups and What To Do About It

Both Sides of the Table

*. Lawsuits. I’m so tired of the nature of the legal system in the United States where bullying, intimidation and mobster-like shake-downs are becoming prevalent. As I write these words I already imagine my next deposition in which I’m asked to read this out loud. Lawsuits are becoming so prevalent these days. Even when I’m not the one being sued I find myself being dragged into deposition after deposition and my blog (along with all my emails) are being served as evidence.

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From $800k to $274M in 4 Years - The Story of Ariba

Tomasz Tunguz

Ariba went public in 1999 three years after having been founded. In its first year of selling, the company generated $800,000 in revenue. Then it ramped. $8 million, then $45 million, then $274M. In a three-year period, the company had grown 33x and achieved an astounding CAGR of 224% over the same period. Ariba shares increased 300% on its first day of trading at IPO, valuing the company at $6 billion.

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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 the heck does a VC do all week anyway?

This is going to be BIG.

I have no idea. I just know what I do--and what I saw partners at other firms I've worked at do. That's one thing you have to realize about venture capital. Every single firm is different. How a partner at a firm spends their time is a function of the number of deals they do, the stage of the company, and their own personal style. As a single GP (a firm with one investment decision making professional), I get asked a lot of questions about how I manage my time considering the number of investmen

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Why Does Startup Pricing Vary by Location?

Gust

Entrepreneurs seem genuinely surprised to find that investors in Peoria or Little Rock are not willing to invest in startup companies at Silicon Valley prices. After all, they just read in TechCrunch that investors funded a company similar to theirs at an $8 million pre-money valuation! The valuation of startup companies shouldn’t be impacted by location, should they?

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5 Simple Steps to Executing the Plan

Berkonomics

It is all about execution. Waiting over a year to see results is too long, since your chance of mid-course correction is greatly reduced. To make the point, Harvard’s Robert Kaplan believes that less than 10% of corporate strategies are effectively executed. Ouch! If that is true, we are tolerant bunch. We carefully plan in long, dedicated sessions each year or so, then draw up a series of goals, strategies, tactics, objectives, targets, or whatever we want to name them.

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The 4 Teams Within Customer Success Organizations

Tomasz Tunguz

At Gainsight’s Pulse Conference on Customer Success, Mike McKee of Rapid7 spoke about the structure of his customer success team. He projected a slide, which I’ve copied in the image above, that depicts the way Rapid7 sells a contract, deploys its software, engenders adoption and expands accounts. It’s the best visualization I’ve seen to describe the sales and customer success process and the inter-team collaboration required to be successful.

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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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How to Build a Unicorn From Scratch – and Walk Away with Nothing.

Gust

This is a grim fairy tale about a mythical company and its mythical founder. While I concocted this story, I did so by drawing upon my sixteen years of experience as a venture capitalist, plus the fourteen years I spent before that as an entrepreneur. I’m going to use some pretty simple math and some pretty basic terms to create Read more >.

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The Decreasing Follow On Financing Success of Startups

Tomasz Tunguz

The rate at which startups are raising follow-on rounds is decreasing, and has decreased steadily from 2003 through 2013. Between 2003 and 2006, post-Series A startups raised series Bs about 57% of the time. However from 2011-2014, that figure fell to 28%. The same trend is true in series C rounds, where success rates fell from 43% to 35%. This decline in startup follow-on fundraising success is the result of an increased number of series A, which have been growing at a rate of 18% per year sinc