2022

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Don’t Make These 5 BIG Mistakes When Answering VC/Customer Questions

Dream It

When pitching a potential investor or customer, time is of the essence. Most of that time goes to the meat of the conversion: the question-and-answer portion. During Q&A, both sides start engaging in a sort of conversational dance - with one side leading (VC/customer) and the other side following (founder). But often, we’ll hear founders misstep and repeat easy mistakes that throw off Q&A flow and cause startups to lose points.

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Innovation Indicators

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Tech:NYC is the industry association for NY’s tech sector. They play a number of important roles and one of them is to educate and inform about the impact of the tech sector in NY. To that end, they launched a valuable resource last month called Innovation Indicators. Innovation Indicators is a dashboard that shows the latest data on the impact of the tech sector on the NY economy.

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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. It wasn’t always like this and frankly it took a lot of joy out of the industry for me personally. What happened? How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets?

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How to Get a VC's Attention at an IRL Event

This is going to be BIG.

A few years ago, I was at Techcrunch Disrupt and this guy taps me on the shoulder as I was chatting in a group. He simply extended a handshake and said: “Hi, sorry to interrupt. My name is Alan. My company is Bread and we make ad creative super easy. I’m sending you an e-mail with early access to the application because I see that you’re busy with this group, but I just wanted you to match the name and the face.

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From Curiosity to Competitive Edge: How Mid-Market CEOs Are Using AI to Scale Smarter

Speaker: Lee Andrews, Founder at LJA New Media & Tony Karrer, Founder and CTO at Aggregage

This session will walk you through how one CEO used generative AI, workflow automation, and sales personalization to transform an entire security company—then built the Zero to Strategy framework that other mid-market leaders are now using to unlock 3.5x ROI. As a business executive, you’ll learn how to assess AI opportunities in your business, drive adoption across teams, and overcome internal resource constraints—without hiring a single data scientist.

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Postmortem of Launch413

Paul G. Silva

A central tenet of the Lean Startup is “pivot, persevere, or perish.” On June 1st, after five years of perseverance and pivoting, my partners and I wound down Launch413. With six months now past, it feels right to share what we’ve learned. For those unfamiliar with it, Launch413 was a Post Accelerator that helped startup CEOs scale for sustained success by providing coaches with deep domain expertise.

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6 Surprising Parallels Between Entrepreneurship and Crisis PR

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Contributed to EO by Eden Gillott, who is president of Gillott Communications , a strategic communications and crisis PR firm. She’s the author of A Business Owner’s Guide to Crisis PR: Protecting You & Your Business’ Reputation, an EO Los Angeles member, and that chapter’s Accelerator co-chair. We asked Eden about the similarities between entrepreneurship and crisis public relations.

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Operationalize Your Startup

Paul G. Silva

About The Workshop. Startups don’t die from laziness. They die from working really hard… on the wrong things. You’ve launched your venture… now what? The financial lives of your team depends on you. When do you raise money? From who? On what terms? Is it time to hire or keep your burn low? Should you pivot to a new market or stay the course? The pressure to make the right decisions is intense.

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The Founder Resolve

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Investing in founder-led businesses is comforting to me. They have the ability to see the forest through the trees and do what is necessary to evolve the business. Two great examples of this are Microsoft in the mid 90s and Facebook a decade ago. Microsoft had spent more than a decade competing and winning the desktop software market and then Netscape came along and presented an entirely new market opportunity that had both major upside and major downside for Microsoft.

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The Founder and Investor Trust Problem: It's not what you think.

This is going to be BIG.

Whenever I submit a term sheet, I always caveat it by saying the following: “This is the one time we’re completely misaligned. I’m incentivized to buy up as much of the company at as low a price as possible and you’re incentivized to sell as little of the company as possible by raising the price.”. Founders seem to get that. The price negotiation process is pretty straightforward, and once a deal has been agreed upon we move on.

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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Dispatches from the Road: Q2 2022

Revolution

Revolution’s team put rubber to the road this spring, traveling more than a collective 12.5K miles to visit founders, college campuses, co-investors, ecosystem builders, and communities in rising cities. While we may not show up on a big red bus every time, showing up?—?figuratively and literally?—?is core to our investment thesis. Why? Because there’s no replacement for meeting people where they are and experiencing innovation economies in real life.

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Charting a Course: Building a Winning VC Fund Strategy [Part I]

The Seraf Compass

As a newly minted manager of a venture fund, your initial response to the question “what are we busy about?” might be, “finding great companies, investing in them and waiting for big financial returns.” And, while your response would be directionally correct, it would be woefully incomplete. There is so much more to running a fund than leaping in, chasing companies and slinging cash around.

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How entrepreneurs are building resilience in their communities

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

How entrepreneurs are building resilience in their communities. By Shannon Courtney. Developing the skills to be resilient is essential in order to be a strong leader, to recover from setbacks and to adapt to whatever challenges come your way. Communities, economies and trade benefit from strong businesses that have learned to weather unexpected challenges.

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What Does the Post Crash VC Market Look Like?

Both Sides of the Table

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. The market was down considerably with public valuations down 53–79% across the four sectors we were reviewing (it is since down even further). ==> Aside, we also have a NEW LA-based partner I’m thrilled to announce: Nick Kim.

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15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

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Cultivating Inclusivity: Why Mentorship Matters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Venture Well

Find out how to provide mentorship to students who may not feel like they belong in innovation and entrepreneurship. The post Cultivating Inclusivity: Why Mentorship Matters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship appeared first on VentureWell.

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Global Organization Recognizes Diversity and Inclusion Excellence in Entrepreneurship Support

INBIA

The post Global Organization Recognizes Diversity and Inclusion Excellence in Entrepreneurship Support appeared first on InBIA.

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New Year, New Entrepreneurs: Five tips for supporting early-stage entrepreneurs ?

Source Link

Every January, the number of people who Google “how to start a business” jumps to hundreds of searches a day. This year in particular, many of these searches are coming from the millions of Americans who quit their jobs in 2021. While starting a business is a common new year’s resolution, soon-to-be entrepreneurs make the leap for a variety of reasons.

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Why You Don’t Want to Miss the MyEO DealExchange DX22 Conference

Entrepreneurs' Organization

The MyEO DealExchange DX22 Conference will take place in Denver, Colorado, from 12-15 October 2022. The first two MyEO DealExchange conferences in 2018 and 2019 made a significant impact on the members who attended—including a 7-figure investment in Scott Mesh (EO New York)’s company. To learn more about the MyEO DealExchange DX22 event, we asked Alan Peterson (EO Orange County), champion of the MyEO DealExchange premier group, about the DX22 event.

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How Top Tech CFOs Solve Annual Planning’s Biggest Challenges

Gearing up for 2025 annual planning? Our latest eBook from the Operators Guild is your ultimate guide. Discover real-world solutions and best practices shared by top CFOs, drawn directly from discussions within OG’s vibrant online community. Learn from senior executives at high-growth tech startups as they outline financial planning strategies, align CEO and board goals, and coordinate budgets across departments.

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Gratitude for Baer Tierkel, a mentor to many, now at rest

Paul G. Silva

Baer Tierkel. The world lost Baer Tierkel last week at the age of 61. About 20 years ago I was a kid running my first startup and Baer was one of the early people to join our Board of Advisors. He came to every board meeting with deep insights and deeper belly laughs. I learned a great deal from that man that proved pivotal. The company eventually failed, but not before helping thousands of blind people around the world reconnect with friends and family in ways many had not thought possible.

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How This Ends

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Back in February of last year, I wrote a blog post with the same title and said this about the asset price bubble we were living in and investing in over the last few years: The big question is how does this end? I believe it ends when the Covid 19 pandemic is over and the global economy recovers. Those two things won’t necessarily happen at the same time.

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How Generative AI is Going to Change Your Life and Mess Everything Up in the Process

This is going to be BIG.

These are the first marketing images of an upcoming movie that I star in with my daughter Mirren about an aging superhero that is absolutely too old for this s**t that winds up having to save some mystical star child. Or, it’s just what “generative AI” does with a series of uploaded images of the two of us if given some creative prompting. Enthusiasts will tell you that this is the beginning of being able to insert yourself into video games, recreate scenes of things that happen to you in the pa

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Lessons from a bipartisan economic triumph, 10 years later

Revolution

Originally published in The Hill on April 23, 2022 America faces a host of pressing economic challenges today?—?but if inflation dominates the public discourse for the moment, we can’t lose sight of the profound role the startup economy will play in driving tomorrow’s prosperity. Washington needs to help the nation’s entrepreneurial community stay ahead of our increasingly aggressive global competitors.

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Your Fractional Finance and Accounting Team

Mighty Financial specializes in supporting the financial aspirations of small businesses and entrepreneurs. With our comprehensive bookkeeping and precise accounting expertise with decades of experience across diverse financial roles, our team offers tailor-made services ranging from essential bookkeeping to strategic fractional CFO support, catered specifically to the unique challenges of technology companies, startups, and SMEs.

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Venture Capital - A Practical Guide to Fund Formation and Management

The Seraf Compass

Travel to almost any part of the world these days and you are likely to run into clusters of entrepreneurship. Whether you are located in a hotbed of technology like Silicon Valley, a huge emerging market such as China, or in the ancient city of Byblos, chances are you will stumble upon a collection of entrepreneurs working to create new, vibrant companies.

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YLAI Give Back Workshops

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

YLAI Give Back Workshops. Education has a way of reaching across borders and empowering young people in a way that few other things can. As it was once said: “Education is the passport to the future, because tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for today.”. Join our YLAI Network Give Back Workshops, presented by YLAI Network Members, and add a “stamp” to your passport today.

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Upfront Ventures Raises > $650 Million for Startups and Returns > $600 Million to LPs

Both Sides of the Table

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. The industry has obviously changed enormously in 2022 but in many ways it feels like a “return to normal” that we have seen many times in our industry.

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What Is Non-Dilutive Funding and Why Is It So Important for Early-Stage Innovators?

Venture Well

When you’re just starting out as an early-stage innovator, the number of funding opportunities can be overwhelming. Learn how non-dilutive funding can be right for your venture. The post What Is Non-Dilutive Funding and Why Is It So Important for Early-Stage Innovators? appeared first on VentureWell.

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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.