Dream It

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

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.

VC 513

VC founder pitching startup 513

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

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?

VC 466

VC startup capital entrepreneurs 466

Revolution

AUGUST 2, 2022

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.

startup 340

startup startup ecosystem ventures founder 340

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 22, 2022

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.

investing 345

investing investment VC entrepreneurship 345

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

B2B marketing

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 14, 2022

The pandemic was the strongest catalyst for workplace change I’ve seen in my lifetime. It disrupted the way work was done, which means it also impacted how leaders operate. Remote and hybrid work became the new normal overnight, and leaders had to quickly transition to new processes and systems. Why was the shift to remote work so powerful? It challenged leaders to think beyond the status quo.

leadership 335

leadership entrepreneurs consulting disruption 335

Venture Well

AUGUST 15, 2022

Course & Program grantee Mateo Neri offers advice for faculty seeking ways to integrate sustainable principles into their courses. The post How To Connect Design Students to Sustainability appeared first on VentureWell.

sustainability 325

sustainability advice innovation 325

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

OpenAI, the San Francisco-based lab behind AI systems like GPT-3 and DALL-E 2, today launched a new program to provide early-stage AI startups with capital and access to OpenAI tech and resources. Called Converge, the cohort will be financed by the OpenAI Startup Fund , OpenAI says. The $100 million entrepreneurial tranche was announced last May and was backed by Microsoft and other partners.

startup 145

startup incubation financing finance 145

Entrepreneur's Handbook

JUNE 30, 2022

( Any views expressed in the below are the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions. ) This current crypto nuclear bear market marks my third brush with generalised market carnage. And while they can sometimes feel like reruns, every episode yields new lessons to be learned.

capital 144

capital investing investment financing 144

David Teten VC

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

It’s hard enough to raise capital from VC, private equity fund, and family offices. How do you sell to them? I’m an investor in many companies which sell to these types of clients. I put together a cheat sheet with some of the sales best practices I’ve seen. I thought this would be helpful to two types of companies: Companies which sell directly to private equity/VC funds and family offices, e.g., some of my portfolio companies from my prior VC funds – Addepar , Drop Technologies ( Cardify

venture capital 126

venture capital ventures capital VC 126

Speaker: Wayne Spivak - President and Chief Financial Officer of SBA * Consulting LTD, Industry Writer, and Public Speaker

The old adages that "cash is king" and "you can’t spend profits" still hold true today. But however well-known these sayings might be, it requires a change in mindset to properly implement a cash flow management system that predicts your business's runaway as accurately as possible. Key to this new mindset is understanding the difference between the Statement of Cash Flows, a historical look at the source and uses of cash, and the Cash Flow Statement, which uses transaction history and forward-l

financing

Ecosystem Builder Hub

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Want to map your entrepreneurship ecosystem but don’t know how to get started? Start here! Note: I originally published this article in 2019 to share my lessons-learned from mapping a local ecosystem. In the years since, through research and conversations with others, I’ve gained some additional insights and perspectives. I’ve added some of those insights here while I work on a more comprehensive resource guide to mapping entrepreneurship ecosystems.

entrepreneurial ecosystem 124

entrepreneurial ecosystem collaboration entrepreneurs communities 124

StartupNation

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

Securing funding for a startup relies heavily on the connections you have among investors, as well as your ability to attract attention to your business. What happens when those investors are mostly upper-class white men, and you are not? It can be difficult for people of color, women, and working-class backgrounds to find investors for their startups when most of the funding comes from people outside their social circles.

startup 128

startup entrepreneurs venture capital ventures 128

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 18, 2022

Today, we officially launched the a16z START program , which fuels founders at the earliest stages of company-building with 1:1 support, network introductions, and up to $1M in funding. Powered by the a16z seed fund in collaboration with partners investing … The post Introducing a16z START appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

founder 142

founder collaboration networking investing 142

Smart Hustle Magazine

JANUARY 9, 2022

It happened to me many times that I tried to know more about a company after looking at its eye-catchy logo or creatively-designed website. My friend, clever designs wield power that can attract your audience like anything. Be it your website, logo, or brochures, your audience notices you. And if you want to leave a lasting impression on your audience, you should have great graphic design elements.

creativity 129

creativity innovation 129

Speaker: P. Andrew Sjogren, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Very Good Security, Matt Doka, Co-Founder and CTO of Fivestars, and Steve Andrews, President & CEO of the Western Bankers Association 

PCI compliance can feel challenging and sometimes the result feels like you are optimizing more for security and compliance than you are for business outcomes. The key is to take the right strategy to PCI compliance that gets you both. In this webinar, we have a great set of panelists who will take you through how Zero Data strategies can be used as part of a well-rounded compliance and security approach, and get you to market much sooner by also allowing for payment optimization.

strategy

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 5, 2022

The advances in AI over the last year are mind-boggling. I attended a dinner this past week with USV portfolio founders and one who works in education told us that ChatGPT has effectively ended the essay as a way for teachers to assess student progress. It will be easier for a student to prompt ChatGPT to write the essay than to write it themselves.

founder 348

founder education VC technology 348

Y Combinator

JANUARY 10, 2022

We have a new standard deal at Y Combinator. When a company is accepted into the YC batch program, we now invest a total of $500,000. We still invest $125,000 for 7% and now also invest an additional $375,000 on an uncapped safe with an MFN 1. This is the type of deal that we have wanted to offer YC founders for years — and with the recent success of YC companies, including ten IPOs in 2021 and more to come this year, we are now able to do so.

startup 145

startup economic environments founder investing 145

The Seraf Compass

OCTOBER 26, 2022

Many years ago I joined the board of a company after my angel group became the lead investor in the company’s seed financing round. As part of my compensation for being a board member, the company issued me restricted stock. Since I was new to the early stage investing world, I didn’t understand what the tax implications were with restricted stock. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t get good tax planning advice at the time, because if I had, it would have saved me a significant amount on my tax bill

board 312

board financing finance advice 312

Tomasz Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2022

Startups create products. After product-market fit, product teams hew the product roadmap from a panoply of options to the features best aligned with the company’s plans. In much the same way, CEOs architect the organization that builds, markets, sells, and supports the product. When a business is ready to scale, a startup ought to develop an organizational roadmap.

startup 141

startup networking investing investment 141

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in

innovation

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 14, 2022

Opeyemi Awoyemi , one of Nigeria’s well-known serial founders, is back with another outfit. It’s not a tech company this time — Awoyemi co-founded online jobs site Jobberman (which was acquired by ROAM Africa in 2016) and Whogohost, a bootstrapped hosting platform — but instead, a venture studio: Fast Forward Venture Studio. Awoyemi choosing this route is quite interesting, especially as many African founders either launch syndicates or venture capital funds post- or duri

ventures 144

ventures startup incubation entrepreneurs 144

Entrepreneur's Handbook

APRIL 28, 2022

( Any views expressed in the below are the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions. ) The COVID pandemic, and most importantly, the global policy response to it, pulled forward decades worth of societal trends in a very short period of time.

energy 134

energy mix-use financing finance 134

David Teten VC

MARCH 1, 2022

The easiest way to work with and for VC funds is to become a part-time scout, getting paid for sourcing investments. But how do you do that? . This is part of a series on building your career in venture capital: Reading list for working in private equity/venture capital , including all of the major online communities, programs, and educational options for people studying VC.

VC 128

VC venture capital ventures capital 128

GCUC

MARCH 8, 2022

It’s International Women’s Day! Now more than ever, it is time that we empower women, bring their businesses and positions to the forefront and. The post 45 Women in Coworking appeared first on GCUC Community.

coworking 97

coworking communities 97

This resource discusses the gap between early funding from friends/family and the more substantial rounds from angel groups and VCs. Why does this gap exist and what can be done about it?

startup

StartupNation

JANUARY 30, 2022

Teaching and mentoring is at the heart of entrepreneurship. As business owners, we’re teaching our prospects how our company can help solve their problem. With our team, we’re teaching and communicating our vision and how we’re to take care of our customers. With our company leadership, we’re teaching how to guide their respective functions of the business.

entrepreneurship 129

entrepreneurship leadership entrepreneurs mentorship 129

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 22, 2022

John List is chief economist at Walmart (a title he previously held at both Lyft and Uber) and a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. He recently published a book titled The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale. In this interview, List discusses some of the book’s. Read More. The post Will It Scale? Applying Data, Science, and Economics to the Art of Ideas appeared first on Future.

creativity 127

creativity innovation 127

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 29, 2022

Like many companies at the beginning of the pandemic, we knew that if we wanted to survive, we couldn’t wait for lockdowns to end. We had to think differently and make experimentation the ethos of our company. In the past, we looked at trying new things as another “goal” to add to the list. But we couldn’t get hung up on perfection as revenue declined.

entrepreneurs 358

entrepreneurs culture development strategy 358

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 7, 2022

Electrified cars were greater than 10% of the US market in 2021 and EVs were about 5%. EV sales are growing at nearly 100% YOY and could reach 25% of the US market in a few years. This is good news for the effort to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. But there are still challenges for the EV market. Range anxiety and charge times are among the top reasons that consumers avoid EVs.

networking 332

networking investing investment 332

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.

strategy