Mark Suster
2x startup Founder & CEO who has gone to the Dark Side of VC. His first company, BuildOnline was sold in 2005, his second, Koral was acquired by Salesforce.com and became known as Salesforce Content, while Mark served as VP Product Management. In 2007 Mark joined GRP Partners in 2007 as a General Partner. He focuses on early-stage technology companies, usually looking at Series A investment, and blogs at the aptly titled Both Sides of the Table.
Identifying Pain in the First Step in a Sales Process – Here’s How
In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA. This post is about the “P” or pain. The point of PUCCKA was to develop a common methodology to make sure our whole team approaches sales with the same mindset and to give us a language to talk with [...]
Why Your Startup Needs a Sales Methodology
Like most startup entrepreneurs, when I began my first company in 1999 I had no formal sales experience. I did have the wherewithal to visit potential customers and try to understand the pain points that I thought could be solved with our solution. This is a very important to do when you first start a [...]
Why You Should Give Before You Get
I have a motto in business and life, “give before you get.” It’s a philosophy, really. And it applies to business relationships & networking as much as it does to remuneration in the workplace. It seems we live in an era of “ask.” I see it on Twitter. Lots of asking. I see it on [...]
Here’s What’s Driving Collaborative Consumption and Where the Market May Head Next
I spoke this past week at the LeWeb conference in London, which was a superbly well run event with a very quality production team. Kudos. The 20-minute video of my presentation is here if you’re interested. And it was convenient for me because we also held our annual London board meeting of DataSift, who helps [...]
Why Startups Need a Well Articulated Strategy (And How to Think About Yours)
I recommend you read Fred Wilson’s recent blog post about the need for a well articulated business strategy before pushing a particular business model. Since Arrested Development is back I thought I’d resurrect Gob Bluth’s answer when he was told he needed a “business model” – he quickly figured out that he was missing one [...]
What Would it Look Like if Elon Musk Pitched a VC Today?
This week I attended the All Things D Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes. It is always a stellar event. The good and great of the tech industry were there: Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Dick Costolo, Max Levchin, etc. But Elon Musk stole the show. I thought Michael Lazerow’s Tweet best captured the mood of the [...]
8 Tips To Get the Most Out of Your Investors and Board
Rob Bailey is the CEO of DataSift. He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. You should read it. More importantly if you don’t know DataSift but have the need to process real-time social data or historic data it’s worth checking them out. It’s valuable to any business for [...]
As Populist as it May Feel, 98% of VCs Aren’t Dumb
By now you will likely have read Andy Dunn’s scathing post about Venture Capitalists in which he decries the industry’s masses. I read Andy’s post with a knowing smile on my face. After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in [...]
Should You Consider Replacing Yourself as CEO?
My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. I have talked about this publicly a great deal – how I prefer “missionaries” over “mercenaries.” But lately I’m more swayed by [...]
The One Word That Shouldn’t Exist in an Entrepreneur’s Vocabulary
No. The one word the best entrepreneurs never accept. I said it. Now let me walk you through a broader story because avoidance of the word in and of itself will seem cliche. Stay with me. When I was little I had a role model for entrepreneurship – my mom. She was a natural leader. [...]
The Corrosive Downside of Acquihires
For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. And to keep up with the Jones’s it seems that Yahoo! has now employed the same strategy. And who cares, right? A couple of tech giants throw millions [...]
Why Online Video Just Took One More Big Step to Legitimacy
Anyone who reads this blog frequently will know that I am a big believer in low-cost video content and specifically the power of YouTube as a content creation & distribution platform. Our industry just took one big step towards legitimacy with the hiring of renowned media exec Ynon Kreiz to run Maker Studios. The industry finally has [...]
The Damaging Psychology of Down Rounds
Yesterday I wrote a post about proprietary dealflow for VCs. In the article I discussed the downside of raising capital at a too high of a price and referred people to a previous article I had written encouraging founders to raise “At the Top end of Normal” as opposed to stratospheric prices. In the comments [...]
Why Early-Stage VCs Should Be Careful About Intros from Bankers
When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. It was a fun period for me because everything was new and I was curious. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage? What price? With which other investors? Should I focus on geographies or industries? Should I [...]
How to Raise Money When You’re Not in a Major VC Market
I travel the country a lot. And I am often approached by entrepreneurs in cities which don’t have a vibrant VC community. They often ask whether they have to move to SF, NY or LA to get financed. I have the same response always, “Where do you want to live? Where do you want to [...]
