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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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Advertiser: ZoomInfo

When economic headwinds pick up, sales leaders are the first to sound the alarm — and chart a new course. Longer sales cycles, larger buying committees, increased price pressure, and smaller teams can quickly combine to reduce your margin for error and increase the urgency to find a solution. To thrive in a challenging environment, sales teams need a rock-solid grasp of the fundamentals and the biggest force-multipliers they can get their hands on.

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The Seraf Compass

DECEMBER 21, 2022

Several years ago, I was speaking to a colleague of mine. He was trying to decide between two great job offers, and was having a difficult time making a final decision. I started asking about his compensation package. For salary and bonus, the two companies were equivalent. However, when it came to stock, there seemed to be a big difference. I tell this story as one simple example of the importance of actually understanding a company’s Capitalization Table (“cap table”) before transacting in the

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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.

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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.

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Quick Sprout

JULY 26, 2022

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best online legal service for most people is Rocket Lawyer or Incfile. Not everyone keeps a lawyer on retainer. Even if they do, the lawyer might not specialize in the area of law required for an unexpected legal need. That’s why online legal services are so helpful. With just a few clicks, you can access legal documents, find a nearby attorney, set up your business, and seek legal counsel to assist with any issue.

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The Zapier Blog

OCTOBER 30, 2022

A few years ago, my parents switched toilet paper brands. While this is surely fascinating information for you personally, it's relevant here because they switched to "Who Gives A Crap," a company that donates 50% of its profits to building toilets and improving sanitation in developing countries. Streamline work across departments with automation Learn how Developing a business model around corporate social responsibility is a great way to use our speck of time on earth to change t

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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StartupNation

JANUARY 18, 2022

If you’re a company’s founder in an early market, you know how hard it can be to cross the chasm between early adopters and mainstream customers. Early markets are by no means easy to tackle, so in this post, I’ll discuss seven tips that will help founders navigate these difficult waters. These tips range from defining the competitive space to defining and executing the right sales strategy and will help you decide the key actions to take, regardless of your product.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

JUNE 17, 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. ) Sometimes you just want to experience pain to remind yourself that you still exist. Maybe that is why I thought walking on to the University of Pennsylvania rowing team was a good idea my freshman year.

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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

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 1, 2022

An automated status updater for Slack isn’t the only thing Mozilla acquired this week. On Wednesday, the company announced that it snatched up Active Replica , a Vancouver-based startup developing a “web-based metaverse.” According to Mozilla SVP Imo Udom, Active Replica will support Mozilla’s ongoing work with Hubs, the latter’s VR chatroom service and open source project.

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Quick Sprout

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

Our recommendation for most people is ZenBusiness because it is a low-cost, low-stress business formation service. Get your business set up in minutes with ZenBusiness. Starting a business is one of the best things you can do to build wealth. Figuring out where to start can be a daunting proposition, though. The good news is that millions of people before you, including me, have started successful businesses.

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The Zapier Blog

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

My first job after college was for a highly disorganized digital marketing agency. On my first day, I was greeted with pure chaos—my manager wasn't even in the office when I arrived. For the first hour, I sat twiddling my thumbs and refreshing my email to see if any direction had come from above. With no processes in place, I was left to fend for myself and annoy my new coworkers with a million questions (if and when they were at their desks).

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Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 19, 2022

Whether through COVID-19, climate change, or geopolitical conflict, the past few years have laid bare the tenuous connections underpinning key parts of our modern world. Wars, pandemics, ransomware attacks, and extreme weather events have pushed supply chains, power grids, and … The post Reshore and Restore: Unlocking American Innovation for the 21st Century appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

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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?

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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.

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Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 22, 2022

Will year-end Series A and B valuations top or trail those of January? This question sits atop most founders' lips and boardroom agendas. The broad market sentiment is they will be lower. Public-market software valuations have withered more than 60% from their highs. Alarm about interest rates, QE ending, and geopolitical risk have swirled around public technology companies, kinking the valuation curve.

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Smart Hustle Magazine

JUNE 30, 2022

Let’s set the scene. You’ve got your business idea, you’ve started bringing in clients, created your website, and you’re set up for success…or are you? While things pick up, room for error and disorganization can begin to increase. When it comes to your business finances, you aren’t the only business owner who may be forgetting one major step…. A survey by Citizens Bank indicated that nearly 26% of business owners do not separate their business and personal bank accounts. 98% of those surveyed u

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Founder Bounty

AUGUST 14, 2022

Funding your business or startup  is a difficult topic and there are a lot of different ways and blogs to go around here but from my experience, I have put a list together that I think you guys should think about and different options. Do you really need funding? This is an important question that we talk about in our other blogs. Does your startup really need funding?

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Advertiser: ZoomInfo

ABM gets better with age — but unfortunately, marketers don't have the luxury of pouring it into an oak barrel for a couple decades to let it mature. In a recent survey with Demand Gen Report, we found 59% of experienced practitioners (those with ABM programs more than a year old) indicated their ABM programs are meeting or greatly exceeding their expectations, while only 45% of novices (those with ABM programs less than one year old) could say the same.

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