Hunter Walk

NOVEMBER 11, 2024

One component of a good Board is a high value add Independent Board Member, which in my experience, often doesn’t get added early enough (for a variety of reasons). Hunter Walk: You started at Instacart in 2013, just a year after it was founded, which obviously turned out to be an epic decision.

board 104

board collaboration energy advice 104

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

Open source computing, which reduced costs to start a company by 90%. This meant: Less capital to start a company thus the rise of “micro VCs” Younger, more technical founders (not as big of a leap to take a risk on a 24-year-old when it’s $250k and not $5 million. Indeed we have already seen the beginnings.

startup 390

startup communities venture capital capital 390

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. But alas I must scale with businesses and make money. If I could bottle this moment and spend all my time here I would be in heaven. And so must you.

board 338

board energy finance financing 338

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 1, 2009

If you’ve read my blog for a while you’ll know that I’m a fan of starting businesses in a non-traditional way. I recommend that you start a company by yourself and own 100% of it. I advocate treating them like a co-founder in every way except when they join and how much equity they get.

startup 289

startup advice entrepreneurs creativity 289

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 10, 2010

I’m talking about children who have done well in k-2nd grades and then get put into a lottery system for charter schools because the drop-out rates for their neighborhood schools are north of 50%. And his stated goal at his young age is to get an education so his kids can grow up in a better neighborhood.

education 340

education creativity sustainability capital 340

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

I have started thinking about what the future might look like and I’ve started imagining what I call, “MMOV” or massive multiplayer online video. Global audiences of prosumer video producers will create content that is viewed by global audiences in numbers far in excess of traditional TV. Why would it? billion views.

peer-to-peer 380

peer-to-peer media creativity disruption 380

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Understanding how your company will change as you move through these phases is critical if you hope to scale to a large business one day. Understanding how your company will change as you move through these phases is critical if you hope to scale to a large business one day. As an early-stage VC I love this phase.

innovation 286

innovation startup board leadership 286

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

A lot of people ask me what I think of posting to Twitter these days… (I’ll start calling it X as soon as I learn to stop saying Battery Tunnel and Triborough Bridge). Even if it doesn’t have the same daily usage, it might even be better now for replies because less people are replying, so you’re more likely to get noticed.

peer-to-peer 344

peer-to-peer board communities leadership 344

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

If you’re funding the same stuff as everybody else and if you started your activities when the clues were obvious you’re much less likely to drive enormous returns. As is often said if you don’t get at least a few fellow VCs (and entrepreneurs) scratching their heads you may not be funding ideas with enough upside.

funders 362

funders culture incumbents technology 362

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2015

And to show you just how similar many of these pioneers of the industry went through a similar startup journey to you – Jeff started by investing his own personal money ($250k) for a few years – $25k at a time – until he could persuade a few institutional investors to give him some money.

VC 348

VC peer-to-peer frameworks board 348

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to “change the trajectory&# for Seattle or for any regional market, really. And I think about the “Seattle issue&# as a metaphor for startups and business in general. But who else is going to get out there and close your big biz dev deals with you?

communities 317

communities VC innovation entrepreneurs 317

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

No, seriously—that’s the perk of running your own business. For example, if Katrina Lake, the founder of Stitch Fix, went off to start a new company, pretty much any investor would give her a blank check to do it. The vast majority of startups are started by people who would have absolutely no problem getting a job elsewhere.

founder 287

founder capital investing investment 287

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Nature vs. Nurture. The comments were littered with nature vs. nurture discussions / debates. I’m prone to hyperbole to get my point across. You’ve all heard the question before. Let’s talk about kids for a moment. I grew up believing that human behavior was 20% nature, 80% nurture.

entrepreneurship 289

entrepreneurship entrepreneurs advice VC 289

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2015

Some smart people whom I like & respect started to weigh in publicly. As a business – no. It’s brand new but the enthusiasm we’ve seen for such an early product is truly awesome. I ran a VC AMA (ask me anything) last Monday on Meerkat and had > 1,000 simultaneous people asking me questions.

energy 325

energy networking VC innovation 325

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 20, 2011

He has an interesting business and one that has a viable shot at being an innovative & profitable business. That’s OK if it’s your problem as long as your business really is differentiated and compelling. I was having a chat with an entrepreneur who I really like and who I try to mentor from time-to-time.

construction 284

construction VC advice entrepreneurs 284

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

Simply, this is identifying a customer need which has economic value to them if they can solve it. ” and if you can’t persuade enough potential customers they have some pain that needs fixing you probably should stick to your day job. Teams usually start with terminology that is very insular and less relevant to customers.

advice 336

advice opportunity development investment 336

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 3, 2021

We both have multiple personal and professional projects that we’re involved with, and we felt like were getting sucked into spending time on things that weren’t moving these efforts forward—everything from too many meetings, or just getting sucked into social media rabbit holes. Was that enough product time? Which projects?

pitching 300

pitching board media consulting 300

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2014

This was in part due to a tremendously busy 30-day period for me (in which my overall writing has been down) and in part the inevitability of knowing that weighing in just tees me up to take abuse on one anonymous app called Secret. It kind of reminds me of an analogy in my head of cars vs. shopping carts.

support 329

support communities networking advice 329

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Over the last couple of weeks, I asked everyone who has been on the Forbes Midas List over the last three years what their activity and accomplishment actually looks like in the functional areas of the job. Besides being “busy doing great deals and distributing cash to your LPs”, what are they’re actually doing to make that happen?

pitching 243

pitching peer-to-peer board VC 243

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. As You Start to Mature. In the Early Days. Mentorship.

board 325

board media mentorship advice 325

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 11, 2024

It’s critical to business. “Without happy people, we don’t have happy clients, and without happy clients there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company,” says Lee Deas, Founder of Obviouslee , a marketing and design agency. Hire great people, equip them, then trust them to do their jobs. This is not fluffy stuff.

creativity 217

creativity culture leadership collaboration 217

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. As an entrepreneur it can feel as intimidating as going to buy a car where the dealer knows the price of every make & model of a car and you’re guessing at how much to pay.

VC 324

VC investing investment entrepreneurs 324

Startup Grind

SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

Aneme Dlamini of Startup Grind chats to Simone Musgrave of Musgrave Gin about perseverance, building an actual business, and bringing your femininity as a force to be reckoned with in the business world. You mentioned in your SG talk that you actually started Musgrave as a side hustle. Aneme = A, Simone = S A : Welcome!

entrepreneurs 212

entrepreneurs mix-use advice innovation 212

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

It’s impossible to get offices so you pay too much or pile in too many people and have two few bathroom stalls or you located in a crappy neighborhood. Greatness in execution stands out more and doesn’t get drowned out by the inevitable over-funding of one’s competitors. We are experiencing a frenetic time.

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Gust

AUGUST 3, 2014

In my experience, inventors and technologists aren’t interested or aren’t very good at building a business, and entrepreneurs aren’t usually good scientists. Most of the great entrepreneurs of recent times, like the young Steve Jobs, had a great technologist, Steve Wozniak, who could implement his dreams. Good with details.

entrepreneurs 165

entrepreneurs creativity investing investment 165

Entrepreneurs' Organization

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

But when vanity intrudes, all the puzzle pieces start to come apart. I need to build a real business and support my family.” The statement includes no external vanity measures such as dollar amount, job title, or client list. A healthy ego can be an entrepreneur’s best friend. The ego represents your sense of self.

communities 222

communities entrepreneurs consulting education 222

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

So it was wonderful to hear from a leading venture capital firm based in Washington DC. Revolution is a “stage agnostic&# fund (means they invest early or late) funded entirely by Steve Case , the founder of AOL and co-founded by two other individuals, Tige Savage (yes, pronounced like the golfer, minus the “r&# ) and Donn Davis.

founder 277

founder venture capital media strategy 277

Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

West Coast investors tend to look for higher growth rates, put less emphasis on profitability, and tend to give more founder-friendly term sheets; East Coast investors tend to look more closely at business fundamentals, seek out more predictable revenue, and often give less founder-friendly terms when investing.

ventures 334

ventures startup capital board 334

Smart Hustle Magazine

AUGUST 3, 2020

A family owned and operated business is nothing new, but a family business managed by two parents and eight and children is pretty unique. The business started with making soap, as it is a low barrier (much less difficult than food products) and the whole family could easily be involved in making and selling it.

creativity 117

creativity sustainability education support 117

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MARCH 3, 2019

Not just from my work as the COO of a startup, or from my previous job as an attorney specializing in international tax law, but from my former life as a professional speed skater, flying across the ice at 30 mph. You get good at falling. Or, more to the point, you get good at picking yourself up again after you take a tumble.

opportunity 152

opportunity innovation advice entrepreneurs 152

Paul G. Silva

DECEMBER 15, 2023

Today I’m releasing version 7, which incorporates changes to help get your innovation adopted. There are a lot of tools that can help, but each has limitations: The Business Model Canvas identifies the big picture hypotheses of your venture… but struggles to help you ID what is needed to get all your key stakeholders on board.

funders 130

funders innovation pitching ventures 130

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2024

It’s far too easy to be busy as a VC and far too hard to feel efficient with your time. I don’t think anyone in VC spends as much time as they’d like to being proactive about thesis and research vs reactive to current deals. About a year ago, I asked why more VCs aren’t using coaches.

VC 195

VC board venture capital communities 195

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

People new to sales make the mistake of assuming that just because you have a buyer talking with you or even somebody who clearly wants to do business with you that it means you’ll get an order. I recently wrote about the three rules of sales. The first of question is about qualifying your potential customers aka leads.

SaaS 315

SaaS VC strategy entrepreneurs 315

Gust

JANUARY 4, 2012

The questions that arise most with respect to any category of IP at the earliest stages include: How will this affect our chances of getting funded on favorable terms ? What kind of advantage will this create vs. our competitors ? What kind of risk do we run of being put out of business by others’ IP rights ?

startup 143

startup entrepreneurs development media 143

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

No board will know your business better than you do but if managed properly they should be the most informed people about your business than any full-time executive. No board will know your business better than you do but if managed properly they should be the most informed people about your business than any full-time executive.

board 196

board strategy construction VC 196

Entrepreneur's Handbook

APRIL 24, 2021

As a serial technical founder, I often get approached for co-founder opportunities. Consider all the smart business people who want to start tech companies, all with an idea or unique insight. Traction Think about what you can do to test the underlying business proposition? Finding a technical co-founder is even harder.

founder 140

founder startup pitching networking 140

American Entrepreneurship

MARCH 12, 2025

Success is not about how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up. Steve Jobs An entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down. Steve Jobs An entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down.

strategy 55

strategy startup creativity mentorship 55