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 [...]
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 [...]
Most Startups Should be Deer Hunters
This post is part of my series “Startup Lessons” Elephants, Deer and Rabbits – Some thoughts on start-up segmentation Nearly all of the mistakes I made at my first company I fixed by the time of my second company. This is the only mistake I repeated twice and it is a mistake that I see [...]
Don’t Drink Your Own Kool-Aid (Surviving TC50)
This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons” Tonight I was reading a good blog post (here) from Sean Powers with Alistair Croll on preparing yourself for the TC50 “bump” – the rise in traffic that a company gets from presenting at TechCrunch 50. Worth a read on how to maximize the traffic that [...]
Do you need a Powerpoint deck for a VC meeting?
photo courtesy of Atlanta Braves This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC.” The “Triple Play” of VC Presentations A large part of my series has been outlining what the typical VC PowerPoint presentation should look like. Some readers have commented that in today’s world you shouldn’t even need a PowerPoint presentation – [...]
You’re most vulnerable right after you win a deal
This is part of my ongoing series, “Start-up Lessons.” Recently I wrote a blog post about how I hated losing, but I embrace it. My starting line with every entrepreneur is that everything I learned about being an entrepreneur I learned from F’ing it up on my first business. I even put that in the [...]
A Tale of Two Pitches
This is part of my ongoing series, “Pitching a VC.” I recently wrote a blog post here in which I argued that the best VC meetings are discussions and not sales pitches. Many people agreed and added that even the best sales meetings are also discussions and not pitches. A few weeks ago I sat [...]
Are MBAs Necessary for Start-ups or VC?
This is part of my ongoing series called “Start-up Lessons.” I was reading Chris Dixon’s blog tonight. He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start [...]
Should Founders Be Allowed to Take Money off the Table?
This is part of my ongoing series “Start Up Advice” but I’d really like to call this post, “VC Advice.” If a company has reached a level of success, has been around for a few years and you believe the company has potential to break out into a much bigger company then you should let [...]
Start-ups are all Naked in the Mirror
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Lessons Building companies is hard work. I started my first company in 1999 in London at the height of the dot com craze. We also had facilities in Dublin, Ireland where our company was initially founded. We went through the euphoria of massive exposure at the time [...]
The Best VC Meetings are Debates not Sales
This is part of my blog series “Pitching a VC.” I’ve sat through a lot of VC pitches and having been CEO of an enterprise software firm for many years I’ve also sat through many customer meetings with sales teams. There is one classic mistake that I see across both types of meetings – “the [...]
Founders, Ownership and Prenuptials
This is part of my ongoing series, “Startup Lessons.” Yesterday I wrote a blog post (here) in which I urged people to not have too many founders. Best case scenario in my mind is just 1, but at most I recommend 2. I knew this topic would be controversial because when I tell people [...]
Most Common Early Start-up Mistakes
This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons.” If you want to subscribe to my RSS feed please click here or to get my blog by email click here. In the Beginning … This is a very important post to me because I find myself giving this advice all the time and if you [...]
First Round Funding Terms and Founder Vesting
This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC“. There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents. The meme was kicked off by Chris Dixon with this post saying that term sheets need to be simplified and align investor / founder interests. That prompted Fred Wilson’s [...]
Embrace Losing
This is part of my ongoing series on Start-up Lessons that I learned from founding two companies. I HATE LOSING. I hate it. I really, really, really hate it. It chaps my hide. It rips at my core. I don’t get over it easily. I lose sleep. I fucking hate losing. It’s not so much [...]
