Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

I remember about fifteen years ago, a well-known VC said to me “you need to sell a company within a few years of the founder leaving. ” I told that VC that my experience has been different on that measure and that I did not agree. I’ve heard it called “moral leadership.”

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This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

In late 2018, the company raised $75 million Series C from Sequoia, arguably the top VC firm in the world. After being largely ignored by Valley investors (the biggest checks in her seed, Series A, and Series B came from men on the East Coast), she finally found support from the VC elite. VC David Sacks tweeted “??

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

If you’re an entrepreneur who would like to see this clause in more startups please ask your VC to include it in future term sheets and link to it from their home page. “We We strive to invest in companies that are consciously working to create a diverse leadership team?—?one

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 5, 2021

Leah Edwards is a passionate fan and connector in technology and impact, a lecturer at UC Berkeley and Stanford and a partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures , a Silicon Valley-based VC firm. As a partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures , I’m aware that the VC industry boasts about finding teams with outlying and industry-changing ideas.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and She worked for 5 years as a VC at Battery Ventures and co-headed M&A at IAC working with Barry Diller. Leadership is about recognizing your next generation of talent and helping lift them up. She had all of the skills and traits we sought?—?leadership,

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JUNE 20, 2019

Early promotion into adulthood is often painful and equally often a sign of an early promotion into leadership. Take any random group of entrepreneurs, for example, and do a quick unscientific survey by asking them to raise their hands if they grew up in an environment where at least one parent had disappeared or left or was never present.

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leadership entrepreneurs investment investing 198

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

Of the first four investments I made as a VC in 2009, two have exited and two (Invoca & GumGum) still are independent and likely to produce $billion++ outcomes . My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca. He then went on the create an early-stage VC that I track closely?—? Maker Studios?—?sold Entrada Ventures? —?that

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Hunter Walk

FEBRUARY 22, 2025

Ok, back to the VC content marketing. As a result I’ve seen hundreds of VC decks, all certain they will be among the top performers. The idea that it’s nearly fruitless to blindly search for a single small object when it’s located in a vast container.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 17, 2011

By sophomore year I got the inspiration to hold leadership positions in the fraternity. Having held all of the major operational functions of the fraternity I was ready for “real leadership.&#. I had the experience and leadership skills. I pledged what was then the best fraternity on our campus, Phi Delta Theta.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

AUGUST 2, 2021

Photo Credit: Fortune Adding to the lack of female representation in the industry, research also shows that only 8% of the investment professionals at the top 25 VC firms are women. As Lindquist adds, “We all have unique networks, personal relationships, market knowledge, and talents, which contribute to the fabric of a VC ecosystem.”

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

The idea is simple enough: several female VC partners at top funds will hold 1-hour meetings with 40 promising female entrepreneurs looking to get advice on their business and pitch in a friendly, non-judgmental, safe environment. 8% of VC partnerships, for example). Now 33% of Supreme Court Justices are women (vs.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

” I look for a lot of things, actually: Persistence (above all else), resiliency, leadership, humility, attention-to-detail, street smarts, transparency and both obsession with one’s company and a burning desire to win. My starting salary when I joined a VC fund as a partner at the age of 39 (and after 2 exits)?

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startup founder investment investing founder 409

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

So what attracted Howard Morgan, the VC with the hottest hand in NYC as of late ( Turntable.fm , Fab.com ), to bring the investment back to First Round? Joe and Mary Bureaucrat who don't even use the internet because Smalltown, USA blocks it as the decisionmakers. Ugh, right? Except that its working. how many salespeople do you have?

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2023

Because most startups avoided raising in 2022, there will be a glut of startup companies in the market for capital this year and while there is plenty of venture capital sitting on the sidelines waiting to be deployed, VCs will be much more selective, instead of funding everything that moves as we’ve done over the last few years.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc. And because as a VC or as a CEO or senior exec you get presented to all the time we’re extra sensitive to it.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

I’m often asked about the differences between being at a VC and being an entrepreneur and whether I prefer one or the other. When it’s an older firm (say Fund X or XII) it is often the 3rd generation of leadership, it has historic rules & norms that haven’t been fixed, it has skewed economics and an unclear mission.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Today I’m handing her the largest A-round check I’ve ever written as a VC as we lead her $10 million A-Round at uBeam. I said simply, “That’s the most ambitious project I’ve seen since I became a VC.” When I first met Meredith Perry she was 24. That was three months ago this week.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

I have had the great pleasure of working with Matt Blumberg and the senior leadership team of USV’s former portfolio company Return Path (which was sold in 2019) for much of the last twenty years.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. I think this is a Seriously great example of how this process works for at least one VC – Upfront Ventures. So I hope that offers you insights into how companies move through the VC system.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 3, 2021

She graduated with high honors from Harvard, is a member of the World Economic Forum and is a Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. “Investors see a lot of pitches,” VC and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman noted. “In You have just 170 seconds.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 16, 2021

Use these resources to understand how your company will look when you pitch a VC or angel. It’s no surprise that salespeople and CEOs have different conversations with customers, but recognizing this played a key role for one EO member: “In hindsight, it was a bad idea that our sales conversations weren’t handled by senior leadership.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

Now that he’s become a VC he’s promising me he’ll provide way more public information and discourse so please welcome him by following him on Twitter and better yet welcoming him with a Tweet of your own linking to his Twitter handle or this post. So what gives? Mark, why wouldn’t you fund him?

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

But honestly there are times when being a VC can feel like that, too. Successful entrepreneurs achieve much through their personal leadership traits that inspire others to do great things with them – sure. And that’s why it’s super important to reference check your VC as I wrote in the linked post.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

I don’t think that Google would have become the success story we all know without the leadership of Eric Schmidt through the years he led the company. Under Rob’s leadership we built out an amazing organization of seasoned enterprise software veterans in the US market. So why did Larry need to return?

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

I often tell people in this scenario to focus on a VC “fixer upper.” Being the CEO of a fixer-upper gives you board exposure and VC relationships that will benefit you later. At most startups the CEO has constant exposure to VCs and other board members through constant phone calls, updates and board meetings.

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advice peer-to-peer VC board 334

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

I believe that the next generation of top companies are far more likely to be founded by people not on VC radars today. You passed on investing in my company but you still made an investment in my leadership and I'm deeply appreciative.”

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 3, 2015

Every VC firm works differently but when asked about our process I always reply the same way, We’re a “high conviction” shop. If you pound the table on deals over a period of time and you’re consistently wrong it’s clear you won’t make a great long-term VC. He took two words where I take 1,000!

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 4, 2022

Mar Hershenson , co-founder and managing partner at Pear VC. Mar Hershenson co-founded and serves as managing partner at Pear VC, a seed-stage investment firm in Palo Alto backing companies like Guardant Health, DoorDash, Gusto, Aurora Solar and Branch. She is also a founding member of All Raise and the Equity Summit.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Notes Wadhwa, “Jason [Calacanis], Fred [Wilson], and Silicon Valley VC’s, I’ve got news for you: you’ve got it all wrong. I’m now a VC that funds entrepreneurs. At the margin you can make yourself better at sales, product design, marketing, leadership, capital raising, etc. I’m an ex entrepreneur.

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David Teten VC

MARCH 5, 2021

(co-written with Katherine Boe Heuck , a MBA candidate at MIT Sloan (class of 2022); past intern at Versatile VC ; and a current intern at Metaprop NYC.). We reviewed CB Insights’ global list of “40 of the Best VC Bets of all Time.” For funds with an overall return of 3-5x, which is what VC funds aim for, the overall return was 4.6x

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 26, 2020

You must act and replace the failed CEO with whomever is the best option in that moment and work with the new CEO to address the challenges facing the company, many a result of the failed CEO’s poor leadership. I am not a fan of removing the CEO until and unless it is abundantly clear that it must be done. You must remove a failing CEO.

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StartupNation

JULY 28, 2021

It would be reasonable to assume that VC funding would drop in 2020, especially during the uncertainty of the pandemic. Only about 12% of decision makers at VC firms are women, and of all the partners at these firms, only 2.4% Alternatives to VC funding for female founders. at its all-time high. . However, U.S.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Luis Daniel Arbulú, partner at Salkantay, told TechCrunch via email that the fund is “the country’s largest VC fund” as per PitchBook and Crunchbase data. Kapor Capital, under new leadership, closes its largest fund to date. VC fundraising gets weird as autumn nears. And Eyal Ofer’s O.G.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

There has been little movement in the amount of VC dollars going to women-founded companies since 2012. Though by no means does this mean that women aren’t doing incredible work in the field and it’s only right that women founders receive their fair share of VC investment. Venture capital is far from a level playing field.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 9, 2022

I’ve been asked by portfolio companies and plenty of others about how they should be changing their strategy given the stock market pullback and what they’ve been hearing on “VC twitter”. VCs need to invest to make their returns—and eventually, they’ll want to raise the next fund to layer more fees upon more fees. VCs gonna VC.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

The best advice she ever gave me, though, was to join the EO to build my leadership skills and my support network. I’ve learnt how to slice the equity pie for VC investors, and gained so much insight about the still male-dominated tech world from this successful tech business veteran.

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