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.
Why Acceptance of Failure is Critical to Startup Success
I talk about failure a lot because I think it can be tremendously instructive and I think that success without failure often masks underlying lessons. I even prefer to fund entrepreneurs who have experience some level of set-backs in their careers or startups because I think it brings a humility to decision-making that I […]
The Corrosive Nature of Over-Introducers
In modern society we’re all over-worked and over-loaded with information and tasks and to-dos and obligations. Nowhere is this more apparent than working in a startup where you are definitionally under-resourced and trying to make big accomplishments in compressed periods of time. That’s why focus is critical. Saying “no” often to people who want […]
Why Computer Vision Has Become a Major Investment Theme for Me
If you follow me on Snapchat (msuster) you might already know that I’ve been looking at and investing in a number of companies in the computer vision space. My thesis is that it will become a major I/O computing metaphor or as this field is sometimes referred to HCI (human-computer interaction). Today I am so […]
Changes in the Venture Capital Funding Environment
Changes in the Venture Capital Funding Environment The funding environment for tech startups is an ever shifting ground as we go through predictable shifts that go hand-in-hand with the slowing of the overall market. The most important shift I would characterize as the market moving from “high conviction” and thus strong follow-ons to “limited conviction” […]
Half Lives. Social Media. And Snapchat Stories.
I’ve been online for nearly 30 years (yes, there was CompuServe and Prodigy before the www), blogging for 10 and using social media tools since the earliest days. I love to watch networks evolve, see how crowds gather and communicate and curate and share. Twitter was the most unique social sharing platform that had emerged […]
How I Invest
I was speaking recently to the team at NuOrder, an LA-based company we’re an investor in about “realism in startups” — an impromptu talk I have given to any of our portfolio companies who ask. During the Q&A I was asked about how I make investment decisions in early-stage businesses. I was asked again in an LP […]
Introducing Snapstorms.com. Why, oh, why Snapchat?
Introducing Snapstorms.com. Why, oh, why Snapchat? For the past few months I’ve been doing nearly daily “Snapstorms” or short videos with startup advice released on Snapchat. Today I’ve made all of them available on Snapstorms.com. Among the most comical things to me in the past few years is just how much it annoys some people […]
Why Solving Big Food & Healthcare Problems Will Yield Spectacular Companies
I’ve spoken before about our desire at Upfront Ventures to fund really big ideas that solve hard problems, are science led and if successful will both have a positive effect on people’s lives as well as make great financial returns. We’re not Pollyannaish about this. We believe that it is incrementally harder to differentiate on […]
What is it Like to Wake Up and Have the Press Ready to Torpedo Your Business?
In case you missed it, the press yesterday ran several stories questioning the viability of a wireless charging company I invested in called uBeam. Obviously my day turned out very differently than I had anticipated when I woke up, but it wasn’t half as bad as the entire team at uBeam must have felt yesterday. […]
How Would You Build a Movie Studio if You Started Today?
I met Andrew Stalbow and Petri Järvilehto from Seriously several years ago after they had just left Angry Birds where they were responsible for international business development / licensing and the game studio, respectively. They had a new company in mind and they posed a question to me “If Walt Disney were to try and […]
Getting Your Series A Mojo Back
You Need to Find Your Mojo A Chip On Your Shoulder A few years ago I wrote a blog post on entrepreneurs with a chip on their shoulders. I think it’s an important read. A chip on one’s shoulder as in, “Fuck the system, it’s broken and I want to fix it” is exactly the […]
The TACO Challenge
Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. In the US this is often confused with Mexican Independence Day, which is actually September 16th and is called Grito de Dolores. That made some people think of taco bowls and love Hispanics. Whatever. Our portfolio company mitú, the fastest growing digital video company focused on the Latino market in […]
Stuck in the Middle With You
Stuck in the Middle With You Reservoir Dogs … If it’s lost on you Google it It’s safe to say that all eyes globally are on the United States right now with an election that feels more like a script of House of Cards than the sad reality we’re living. There are reasons to be despondent […]
Why on Earth Would Anybody Post Business Videos on Snapchat?
Why on Earth Would Anybody Post Business Videos on Snapchat? By now if you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I do near daily “Snapstorms” or a collection of short videos (usually < 5 mins in total) with entrepreneur advice on Snapchat. Here’s a recent one I did on Fund Raising in tough […]
Lead, Follow or Get the Fuck Out of the Way
Lead — It’s hard to be a real leader. Decisions are never black or white, so most people fudge. The straddle middle grounds to keep everybody happy. They make compromises to try and hold together constituencies. On business decisions they want to hedge their bets so they do a little bit of everything but nothing […]
