Can VC’s Invest Across Two Funds?
This is part of a series that I’ve been working on called Understanding Venture Capital. In one of the posts I spoke about how the size and vintage of funds might affect you when you’re raising money. This led Roy Rodenstein (whose company Going.com was sold to AOL) and others to discuss, what happens when [...]
Understanding the Risks of VC Signaling
This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. Because it is a “series” I plan to get into some of the deeper complexities of funds such as [...]
Does the Size of a VC Fund Matter?
This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management” as in “We have $1.5 [...]
Understanding VCs – Where Are You on the Flightpath?
In the past I’ve written on the topic of “Raising Venture Capital” but today I’m starting a new series called “Understanding VC’s.” My goal is writing this series of to make it easier for you as a startup needing to raise money to understand how venture capital firms work so you can be more efficient [...]
Time is the Enemy of All Deals
This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice (although this also applies tightly with Raising Venture Capital) You all know this intuitively. But on a scale of ABC (always be closing) there is a wide degree of urgency that entrepreneurs show. As as I’ve said before, I believe that getting things done is [...]
How to Present at Big Meetings without Going Down a Rat Hole
I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Congratulations. You’ve found a VC partner or principal who has invited you to the Monday partners’ meeting. Or on a sales campaign you’ve finally [...]
Inaugural Open Angel Forum Was a Success
Last night I attended the inaugural Open Angel Forum event started by Jason Calacanis, a fellow LA resident. Jason started the Open Angel Forum in response to his frustration that entrepreneurs were being charged by some angel organizations to present at their events. He wrote an excellent blog post on this topic. As a former [...]
How to Connect on Social Networks
I sometimes think that certain advice is BGO (blinding glimpse of the obvious) and doesn’t warrant mentioning. But then people’s actions tell me otherwise. I wrote recently about etiquette when you meet people at conferences or events so now that I have this done I feel I need to say some words about connecting on [...]
How to (re) Approach People (Advice on the Eve of LeWeb)
Business Etiquette Tips for dealing with VCs and Corporates at Conferences This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. With the LeWeb conference about to start in Paris I thought the timing of this post would be appropriate. Right after Techcrunch50 Michael Arrington wrote this great post on how to interact at business [...]
Is Strategic Money an Oxymoron?
This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series Yesterday I had lunch with a really interesting and capable serial entrepreneur who is raising his A round. The topic of ”strategic” investors came up. It felt like Groundhog Day because I have this conversation again and again – literally dozens of times each [...]
Retro: My Favorite Blog Post on Raising VC
On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. [...]
VC Seed Funding is Dead, Long Live VC Seed Funding!
This is part of my ongoing series about Raising Venture Capital. This posting was inspired by an email from Rajat Suri who wrote me an email in response to Chris Dixon’s blog post (link below) from August, which recently re-ran on Business Insider and has generated much Twitter chatter. A few years ago it became [...]
2010 VC Funding Outlook for Startups – Prepare for Winter (Part 3/3)
In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. In the second post I argued that as of September 2009 the pace of VC investments has increased rapidly (at least for software / Internet investments – the only sector on [...]
The Big VC Thaw – Why The Market is Moving Again (part 2 of 3)
In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. There are now signs the VC market has gathered pace meaning it’s a great time to be [...]
I met with an investor, what happens next?
This is part of my ongoing series, “Pitching a VC.” Getting a meeting with a prominent angel or VC is difficult enough. Some advice on how to do that was covered in this link – Getting Access to a VC. This post covers the day after. I spoke about the topic on Fox Business News [...]
