Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

'I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 years ago. I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. That company was Invoca, which just announced a $20 million fund raise led by Accel.

VC 387

VC venture capital financing finance 387

Gust

MARCH 23, 2014

'Image via Flickr by krossbow. These days, your online Internet reputation is your reputation. Of course, having no reputation is usually better than a bad one, but don’t wait for someone else to establish a good one for you. It’s time for every business and business person to proactively create a positive presence, before someone else puts you in a defensive mode that is hard to win.

disruption 178

disruption networking entrepreneurs innovation 178

Tomasz Tunguz

MARCH 26, 2014

Earlier this week, I attended the Spring YCombinator Demo Day. I’ve been attending for six years now. Each time, I’m impressed by the intelligence, ambition and the polish of the founders presenting companies only a few weeks or months old. As I listened to the pitches, I wondered if the types of startups founders decide to build at YC has changed over time and whether those trends are lagging or leading indicators of the market as a whole.

SaaS 40

SaaS social gaming education pitching 40

For Entrepreneurs

MARCH 26, 2014

'It will surprise a lot of entrepreneurs to learn that building an e-commerce business with $10 million to $20 million in revenues is not that hard. It also surprises many to learn that it’s not actually that valuable. This is in stark contrast to, say, a SaaS business, which is very difficult to build to […].

SaaS 167

SaaS entrepreneurs startup 167

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technology

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2014

'We all intuitively know how important human connections are in business but for many people it’s like exercise or eating well – one of those things you keep meaning to get around to. It reminds me of a line my wife and I often jokingly say to each other after seeing the awesome film “ Notorious ” about the life of Biggie Smalls. “I know mothafuckas who know mothafuckas.” Please just take 8 seconds to listen to this clip on YouTube – it’s priceless

networking 366

networking peer-to-peer advice mentorship 366

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 24, 2014

'These days, there are a ton of options for you if you''re a startup seeking guidence. Every single topic about running a company has been written about ad nauseum, there are incubators, accelorators, mentoring programs, events, talks, etc. We''ve done a lot to make sure startups get all the help we can get--and it''s leading to higher companies getting off the ground.

accelerator 337

accelerator mentorship VC incubation 337

Berkonomics

MARCH 27, 2014

'With help from JJ Richa. There are so many ways to finance a small business. Most of them rely upon some form of debt, often personally guaranteed by the founder(s). So we investigate the most simple of these methods of debt financing first, since most are simple to execute and non-dilutive – that is help you to retain your ownership intact. Here is a list of common loan types: Line of credit – short term working capital.

real estate 66

real estate economic development financing finance 66

Tomasz Tunguz

MARCH 24, 2014

Yesterday, Box filed for its IPO and released its S-1. I enjoy going through S-1s because quite a bit about a private company is revealed and though only a subset of information is released, the S-1 discloses some very important details about the business operations. Over the past several months, I’ve analyzed the basket of the roughly 40 public SaaS companies many different ways.

SaaS 40

SaaS peer-to-peer development capital 40

Gust

MARCH 26, 2014

'As Ryan Lackey noted, having a lot of money is essentially irrelevant in this context, because that is not the way venture capital works. A venture capitalist (colloquially known as a VC) is a professional money manager who gets paid to manage *other* people’s money, not his or her own. [Typically, only 1% or so of the money in a VC fund would come from the general partners themselves.].

ventures 138

ventures angel investing VC venture capital 138

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development

Tomasz Tunguz

MARCH 23, 2014

Imagine a city council meeting with three agenda items: a $100M power plant zoning approval, a request to build a $10,000 bike rack for city sidewalks and and a $100 proposal to buy refreshments for the annual picnic. The power plant discussion takes all of 3 minutes to reach approval, as does the refreshment budget. But the $1000 bike rack debate drags on for hours as council members debate the right materials, the best color scheme and the right way to announce the project.

startup 40

startup culture 40