Did Peter Thiel Make The Single Best Investment In History?
In 2005, Peter Thiel paid $500,000 for a 10% stake in Facebook.Today, with Facebook’s estimated value topping $33 billion, his stake is worth between $2-3 billion. That’s a 6,000x return on his capital in 5 years.I’ll put it this way–if you made a $2…
Yes, There Is A Superangel Conspiracy.
I have a confession to make. There is an angel conspiracy. It dark, it is devious, and it is far-reaching. The conspirators number amongst them many of the top people in the Valley, including angels, VCs, lawyers, and yes, even journalists. We have joined together despite our differences and conflicts for a single, sinister, self-interested [...]
While Entrepreneurs Scale On The Cloud The Angels Get Supersized
Cloud computing is disrupting the venture capital industry in a big way. One of the obvious changes we all have observed is the reduced up-front capital expenditure to start a new venture. Things that used to require an array of expensive servers and an army of people to maintain them have essentially been replaced by [...]
On Bootstrapping. And Big Bucks. And Organic Growth
Recently there have been a few posts about growth through funding and growth through organic means. Tony Hsieh from Zappos told his tale of woe about the expectations of VC’s in terms of good exits. On the other hand, Sridhar Vembu, Founder of Zoho (disclosure – Zoho is exclusive sponsor of CloudAve) wrote an excellent [...]
Launch Silicon Valley: 30 Startups Debut Tomorrow
Somewhat late notice, but there’s an exciting startup debut event in Mountain View tomorrow: Launch: Silicon Valley, co-presented by SVASE, Garage Technology Ventures and Microsoft, provides the next generation of emerging technology companies with the opportunity to pitch their products to, and network with, an audience of Silicon Valley’s top VCs, Angels, corporate business development [...]
Congratulations to Mark Suster, No 2. Top-rated VC Partner
Image by GRP Partners via CrunchBase Our readers know Mark Suster for his popular series on startups, getting funded, generally dealing with VCs but also on strategy, sales, management, presentations ..etc. In short as the very accessible all-around startup guy. I first met him as CEO of Koral, a startup later acquired by Salesforce.com. Considering [...]
What Can You Learn from the 4-Hour Workweek?
A couple of years ago I read the popular book, “The Four Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss. It was recommended to me by my friend, Net Jacobsson, who was trying to do some basic Life Hacking. If you’re not familiar with the term it’s basically trying to help all of us who are deluged with [...]
What we have here is a failure to plan
Well, it’s that time of year; the end of the year that is. Time for holiday cheer, budgets and for a rare few, strategic planning. I say for a few because I’m frequently surprised at how little I hear from the VC community and VC-backed CEOs about strategic planning. When I do hear about planning, it is [...]
Save Your Spin for Someone Who Cares
Handling PR with VCs This is part of my series on How to Raise VC but could equally be filed under Startup Advice more generally. I recently got a phone call from an entrepreneur whom I respect and who runs a company that I hope will do great things one day. He had pitched me [...]
VC Funding Season Ends Next Week
This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. I’m sure I’ll spark the ire of some VC’s for saying so, but there is certainly such a thing as black-out days in venture capital. It’s worth you knowing this so you don’t waste your time. It’s also very important to understand so that you [...]
Are Business Plans Still Necessary?
This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. I remember going to an Under the Radar conference in 2006 in the heat of the Web 2.0 craze. There were tons of young entrepreneurs showing their latest Web 2.0 wares. [...]
Good Times Ahead for VC-backed Tech Companies?
Montgomery & Co Projects Deal Volume to Grow by 167% in Just 2 Years with No End to Growth in Sight On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well [...]
Should Your Startup Have an Advisory Board?
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. It’s very tempting. It’s mostly done by first-time entrepreneurs who want to persuade (bribe?) prominent industry luminaries to be closely associated with the company. It’s done partly in hopes of gaining their wisdom but it’s also done to portray the [...]
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 [...]
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 – [...]
