Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2015

The simple point is that if you control 51% of your company and/or the voting rights you can avoid a lot of headache and you can still be very generous with early people who join your mission. Lawsuits are on the rise. Much money is at stake and founders have been conditioned that suing is ok. I angel funded a company 5 years ago. He sued anyways.

startup 352

startup advice board founder 352

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

These engagements went well and he came highly referred by my friend Gary Swart who runs oDesk. The Dave I know is a tireless traveler and loyal to his friends the way Brad Feld is. Not much more. I think he could say “no” a bit more. He is tireless and works his arse off. But he knows that. I’ve been told so. And thoughtful.

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VC data analysis incubation health 309

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

By all accounts I now consider him a friend. My friend called to talk through our mutual situation. I had dinner with my friend Brooke Hammerling , founder of Brew PR recently. I got a call Sunday from a business colleague while I was sitting in the lounge at LAX waiting for yet another delayed flight. And I agree entirely.

startup 363

startup real estate VC venture capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2013

This made my friend Dorrian Porter ‘s KickStarter initiative to create a statue of Tesla in Silicon Valley even more poignant. He is the close friend of my dear friend and college roommate, Stefan Kennedy, who is also a luddite and therefore will never read this Yes. It is always a stellar event. And space travel (SpaceX).

VC 315

VC pitching venture capital innovation 315

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). They worry too much about missing out on a deal.

VC 374

VC investment investing entrepreneurs 374

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

When you’re hiring most reference checkers focus on the person’s former bosses. Just literally this week I had breakfast with a guy giving a reference who said, “He’s brilliant. Startups are hard. You’ve heard that a million times. Those that we survive with become family. It was a moment. But he knows it.

board 320

board VC construction opportunity 320

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 12, 2016

For six years before that he was at Siebel who was the market leader in CRM before Salesforce, and he has both a masters in product design from Stanford and an MBA. But more importantly I worked with Chuck 10 years ago when I was at Salesforce.com and have kept a relationship over the past decade. The reason is simple.

real estate 244

real estate leadership board investing 244

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2015

” So if you – or a friend or loved one – think you have ADD please take the time to watch the videos below and/or read brief texts that follow them. Let me start the post with three statements. I wasn’t even aware that I had ADD until I was 40 (I’m now 47) and knowing it has changed my life for the positive.

creativity 384

creativity consulting entrepreneurship energy 384

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2011

And figuring out who is referring your traffic is a very important part of determining how you allocate your marketing budgets. As in they weren’t referred by anybody. But since many other websites pull in Twitter data, including links, you don’t always know who is referring the traffic to you. Terribly wrong.

media 292

media investing investment founder 292

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 25, 2013

Back in 2006, when I started working on putting together some community groups for entrepreneurs and tech people, I looked for a better name to reference this collection of people. Tech community" seemed too much about people soldering things together and writing code. anyone using these barstools and this old printing press?"

communities 290

communities innovation creativity real estate 290

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I keep my competitors as friends and those that didn’t choose me or my product as friends, too. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a sore loser. I don’t break tennis rackets, cry foul, fall over like an Italian soccer player or work the referees. Quite the opposite. I’m usually quite a gracious loser.

consulting 333

consulting advice collaboration VC 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I keep my competitors as friends and those that didn’t choose me or my product as friends, too. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a sore loser. I don’t break tennis rackets, cry foul, fall over like an Italian soccer player or work the referees. Quite the opposite. I’m usually quite a gracious loser.

consulting 328

consulting advice collaboration VC 328

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2013

I’m super proud to announce that DataSift has just completed a $42 million financing round coming at the end of a year where its revenue grew several hundred percent year-over-year. Considering our revenue is SaaS revenue this achievement is even more remarkable. ” What gives? Why all the fuss about the Twitter firehose?

board 358

board disruption media SaaS 358

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

I recently got an email from a friend who had been approached by a well known VC. He sent me an email asking whether the approach was real and whether he should take it seriously. Here is the email he received (reprinted without names with his permission). “Hi [entrepreneur], I hope all is well. What fits your schedule?

VC 294

VC entrepreneurs advice investing 294

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2014

As a fan of NPR and as somebody who thinks about its future I can’t tell you how please I was this week to learn that my friend Jarl Mohn had taken the job of becoming the new CEO of NPR. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a few brands & media properties that I truly love and for which I have huge loyalty. Virgin America.

media 299

media leadership disruption board 299

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 28, 2022

So I saw this tweet by Semil Shah yesterday: A friend who works in an industry far from tech startups & VC asked what would be the single article I’d share to read on each topic. Instead of references, I like to give a list of every entrepreneur I’ve ever worked with and an email address. Not this one. Leave it at that.

VC 261

VC entrepreneurs venture capital strategy 261

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2015

It has become so synonymous with Internet companies that the French have invented a disdainful term including Amazon: “les GAFA,” which they refer to as Google-Apple-Facebook-Amazon to talk about American dominance of the Internet. It is a household name. ” Let’s start with some basics. The value prop is pretty clear.

real estate 364

real estate startup disruption incumbents 364

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Sometimes we don’t even realize it. This is a story of one person who had the power to change my life – and did so. It’s the story of persistence in entrepreneurs. And it’s the story of “paying it forward.&#. I know his life touched many of us that worked with him – in ways he never knew.

consulting 352

consulting peer-to-peer advice entrepreneurs 352

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2016

During this period Kobie worked closely with many SaaS companies including ExactTarget from its early days and the Founder & CEO, Scott Dorsey, served as a strong reference for Kobie. Kobie worked with several companies while at Accel including Campaign Monitor (run by my good friend Alex Bard), UserTesting, and Emergent VR.

ventures 260

ventures culture venture capital SaaS 260

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

A Forum, which is also often referred to as a Mastermind, is a group of peers who meet regularly, with the goal of helping each member improve personally and professionally. Almost 10 years ago, I had my first experience with a professional Forum when I joined Entrepreneurs’ Organization.

peer-to-peer 278

peer-to-peer advice frameworks accelerator 278

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

I have gotten to the point where I consider many of my LPs friends. Who else is going to tell a VC if he got a bad reference from an entrepreneur or fellow VC? I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. Starting with a positive.

peer-to-peer 341

peer-to-peer VC entrepreneurs support 341

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2013

A friend of mine who was a former sales manager used to call this, “Identify the need then get the need agreed.” Every sales organization with more than a handful of reps or that is across multiple offices or time zones would benefit from having a sales methodology. There are many out there and many books have been written on the topic.

advice 328

advice development support technology 328

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

I should note that my friend Brad Feld has written a new book on the subject that I would recommend if you want the bible on the topic. I’ve written a few posts about boards recently as part of a series on the subject. In the Early Days. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions. Mentorship. As You Start to Mature.

board 325

board media mentorship advice 325

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

My friend Ethan Anderson put it best to me after the panel, “You probably shouldn’t have been up there. My friend Ethan Anderson put it best to me after the panel, “You probably shouldn’t have been up there. Answer: Not much. And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. It’s a shame.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

This led median valuations to triple in 3 years and led to this stupid phenomenon that people refer to as “unicorns ,” which I am convinced will the the thing most historians laugh most about in this era. The fact that I still see it referred to in pitch decks is farcical. Here is a brief history first to put the changes into context.

venture capital 271

venture capital capital ventures VC 271

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 10, 2024

Successful companies answer these questions with a resounding “Yes!” How can you do this? Create a single document outlining your brand in vivid detail, then design training to educate all new hires, and implement performance metrics based on brand values. To create it, gather your team in a collaborative space away from your daily workplace.

collaboration 218

collaboration entrepreneurs creativity education 218

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2016

My thesis is that it will become a major I/O computing metaphor or as this field is sometimes referred to HCI ( human-computer interaction ). The major source of input throughout the past 50+ years has been a keyboard and then in the past 25+ years this added a friend called a mouse. Just sayin ’ ;) ) Voice is interesting.

investment 208

investment investing peer-to-peer real estate 208

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

JUNE 2, 2022

This information enables users to cross-reference and verify data and thus have a more comprehensive overall vision. The United States will host the Ninth Summit of the Americas from June 6 to 10 in Los Angeles, California. Get to know them here, and keep up with them during their time at the summit! .

real estate 190

real estate data analysis mentorship entrepreneurship 190

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

This post originally ran on TechCrunch. We all read them to get a sense of what is going on in the world, peeling back layers of the old world in which media was too scripted. By definition, you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? Absofuckinglutely. You wouldn’t.

startup 373

startup advice communities VC 373

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2020

In marketing materials founders often refer to their customer base as a “community”, but there’s a huge gap between having customers and creating a community. Bevy is Emerging as a Leader in Software for Building Virtual Communities?—?with This had a dual purpose?—? These aren’t merely exercise methods?—?they they are communities and tribes.

communities 234

communities peer-to-peer venture capital enablement 234

Revolution

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

Founder-market-geography fit refers to the optimal alignment of three critical dimensions: the founding team’s competencies, the market demand for the startup’s solution, and the geographic location where the startup is based. In the last decade, we’ve socialized several Rise of the Rest-isms to describe investments that check those boxes.

founder 246

founder transportation innovation education 246

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

Imagine the “typical&# deal – somebody comes into a VC’s office, they’ve never met, they’re highly referred by a friend and they’re pitching a product demo and a PPT. This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. I was interested in learning more. I do understand.

startup 360

startup VC advice entrepreneurs 360

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 13, 2011

For the next four days if you’re in the tech industry you’re going to hear a non-stop stream of information about SXSW. It’s the time of year when many new startups are struggling to rise above all the noise and be heard. And when everybody is shouting it becomes overwhelming. I’m actually in Austin at the moment.

networking 289

networking disruption education strategy 289

Jason Malki

APRIL 24, 2025

In 2015, a friend from college started a bespoke mens clothing company called Articles of Style that was exclusively online. I of course also believed in my friends vision and work ethic so I took the plunge by contributing some seed money. Before moving to Tanzania, he gained valuable experience working in the U.S.

investment 52

investment investing sustainability energy 52

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 22, 2010

It all started yesterday when Jason Calacanis sent a Tweet telling GenY’ers / Millennials or whatever people under 30 want to be called these days that job hoppers look like “flakes. &# I simply sent a supporting Tweet saying that I agreed. I’m not staying become a lifer. James, 6 years is fine. But you know the routine.

advice 392

advice peer-to-peer consulting startup founder 392

Entrepreneur's Handbook

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Our newsletter has 2.5 million subscribers, but that’s not the number we actually care about. In August, we hit a major milestone at Morning Brew: 1 million opens. A single edition of the Morning Brew newsletter was opened by over 1 million people. For those who haven’t heard of Morning Brew , we’re a business media startup founded in 2015.

opportunity 129

opportunity strategy creativity board 129

Gust

MAY 25, 2014

Every startup with any traction quickly reaches a point where they need to hire employees to grow the business. Unfortunately, this always happens when pressures are the highest, and business processes are ill-defined. The result is a host of hiring mistakes that sink many young companies, or take years to fix.

entrepreneurs 170

entrepreneurs advice pitching investing 170