Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not?
There are certain topics that even some of the best journalists can’t fully grok. One of them is profitability. I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” I mention journalists here because they perpetuate [...]
What Startups Can Learn From Tim Tebow
The Tim Tebow phenomenon has become the biggest story in the NFL, exceeding the routinely remarkable perfection of the Green Bay Packers and the quietly dumbfounding turnaround of the 49ers under Jim Harbaugh.For those who aren’t sports fans, Tim Tebow…
The Controversial First Role to Hire After Your A Round
I’ve thought a lot about team construction of early stage companies. I was once asked on Quora what my idea startup team would be. I wrote the following: “I like to invest at the seed or A round. My ideal team is simple: Assuming 6 people 1. 5 engineers 2. 1 CEO who doubles as [...]
Understanding How Dilution Affects You at a Startup
Dilution. Or as industry insiders call it, “taking a haircut.” Everybody knows that when you raise money at a startup your ownership percentage of the company goes down. The goal is to have the value of the startup go up by enough that you own a smaller percentage of a much larger business and therefore [...]
Why Aren’t There More Female Entrepreneurs?
I’m often asked the question about why there aren’t more women who are entrepreneurs. On my blog I’ve been hesitant to take the topic head on. Somehow it seems kind of strange for a man to answer this question that obviously comes from a man’s point of view. But last week I noticed a blog post [...]
Working with Friends
Last week I wrote about the value of repeat relationships in the venture capital and private equity business. I used the example of a portfolio company that recently raised capital from a firm we have worked with on a repeat-basis. I intentionally left out the investor’s name as well as the companies knowing that this [...]
The Lesson of Dropbox: Usage = Value
Word on the street is that Dropbox is about to raise a major round of financing at a $5 billion+ valuation. While some will cry “Bubble!”, I think there’s a different lesson we can learn: Usage = Value. Let’s face it–Dropbox isn’t the most complicated business or technology. It’s a relatively simple storage app that [...]
Stock Market Drops. Then It Rallies. What Happens Next for Funding?
Venture Capitalists typically have partners’ meetings on Mondays. Why is that? Who knows. But probably because as a group we travel a lot. So the industry formed around a day of the week when all partners could avoid having company board meetings or traveling. Yesterday was a Monday. And not a pleasant one. Rewind. When [...]
Engineers, Designers and Product Managers – A Point of View
The “awesome triangle” that builds products consists of engineers, product managers and product designers. Here is a view of how each of the corners sees the other. Your comments, please…
Why I’m Doubling Down on the Twitter Ecosystem
Today I’m announcing that GRP Partners is doubling down on the Twitter ecosystem by investing in DataSift, a company who provides a real-time data platform and tools to third-party developers and corporations. Our goal is to make the enormous volume of real-time information more manageable for the 99% of companies that lack the infrastructure to [...]
The Coming Brick Wall in Venture Capital & Why This is Good for US Innovation
This is the final part of a 3-part series on the major changes in the structure of the software & the venture capital industries. The series started here if you want to read from the start. Or the Cliff Note’s version: Open Source & Cloud Computing (led by Amazon) drove down tech startup costs [...]
Evernote Celebrates Birthday by Joining the Billion Dollar Club (Really?)
Evernote has recently celebrated their third birthday. I also recently had my 21st birthday – it feels good to be able to legally grab a drink finally. (Hey, if Evernote can lie about their age, so can I…). Joke apart, I have no idea why a company would pretend to be half as young as [...]
On Bubbles … And Why We’ll Be Just Fine
I recently spoke at the Founder Showcase at the request of Adeo Ressi. I asked what the audience most needed to hear. He said, “They need an unbiased view of the fund raising environment because there is too much misinformation and everything seems to be changing fast.” This was [...]
Startup Lifecycle a’la ABBA (Are We in a Bubble?)
Wow, who would have thought 1970′s supergroup ABBA were such good predictors of the Startup Economy:-) No kidding… it all started with a tweet by Box Lead Magician Aaaron Levie: @levie We must be in a tech bubble given how much ABBA I’m listening to. 24 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply My first though was: [...]
Should a Startup Have a COO?
It’s rare I can dust off a 6-year old article, find it still relevant and repost it without any changes. But that’s what happened this morning, I felt provoked by this VentureBeat title: Even start-ups need a COO – wanted to respond, than I had that “I’ve already said this” feeling and realized I would [...]
