Secrets of a successful enterprise software startup founder
It seems every entrepreneur wants to start an enterprise software company. However, many of these founders do not possess a realistic understanding of what selling to the enterprise actually means. While it is true that enterprise budgets can be large, convincing managers to buy your products is often difficult, complex, and time-consuming. Enterprise buyers tend […]
How I Promise You One of the Most Meaningful Days of Your Life
I know the title “I promise you one of the most meaningful days of your life” sounds grandiose but I mean it and I hope you’ll read through to the end and choose to take one small, totally free action, that will change your life and likely those of others. On September 10th of this […]
Oracle in the cloud: The analyst conversation
Wavebreak Media LTD Last month, Oracle presented OpenWorld, its annual confab of enterprise software, in San Francisco. OpenWorld gives Oracle the opportunity to showcase the latest technology, products, and future directions of this huge company. It also creates a nexus of customers, prospects, press, and analysts who converge to study the company and its plans. […]
Time Doesn’t Kill All Deals. But It Puts Them At Risk.
There’s a little bit of death-by-a-hundred cuts that many SaaS companies box themselves into. As they scale, they get out of the hackey way they do contracts, NDAs, proposals, and other documents. They have their controller, then their VP of Finance, then their CFO review things, then hand off to the General Counsel. Which takes […]
Venture Capital is About Human Capital
Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca For the first 5 years or so after I became a VC I didn’t talk much about what I thought a VC should be excellent at since frankly I wasn’t sure. I was mostly doing my job and trying to figure out how to be better every day. After a decade […]
Josh Stein, Partner @ DFJ: What Makes a Great SaaS CEO (Video + Transcript)
As a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Josh Stein has invested in some of the most well-known SaaS companies in the world like Box and Yammer and spent plenty of time with truly remarkable SaaS CEOs. In this session he and Jason Lemkin sit down and dive into what really makes a great CEO, and how that […]
A Newbie’s Guide to Dreamforce. Hint: You Can Go For Free. And You Will Learn at Ton.
Next week is the largest SaaS event on Planet Earth: Salesforce’s Dreamforce. (The SaaStr Annual ’17 will be #2). I’ve been going since 2005, from ’06-’11 as a vendor, and ’12-today as a participant / speaker / etc. I went first in ’05, when I knew nothing about SaaS. Back then, I think it just […]
Why I Backed a 24-Year-Old Trying to Assess Human Potential
Last week Upfront Ventures announced backing Rebecca Kantar’s startup Imbellus, a company designed to assess human potential and ultimately change the way we teach children. We led a $4 million investment along with Thrive Capital, GLG and Sound Ventures. The news blogs covered the what, how and how much but I want to focus on the […]
How Do VCs Choose Their Investors (and should entrepreneurs care?)
I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. I spent a bunch of time thinking about this position — especially since Beezer is an investor in Upfront Ventures. There are a lot of things I […]
#CXOTALK Reinventing the legal industry with AI, machine learning, and augmented reality
The legal industry has a reputation for being slow to change and behind the curve on adopting new technologies. A credible survey of law firms in the UK indicated these facts: 17 percent of partners in the top 25 UK law firms are women 80 percent of the law firms surveyed see digital strategy as […]
What to Make of Andreessen Horowitz’s Returns?
Rolfe Winkler wrote a piece in the WSJ about A16Z’s returns in which he says they “lag behind Sequoia, Benchmark and Founders Fund.” Scott Kupor of A16Z responded with a comprehensive overview of valuation methodology in a post that while accurate feels more targeted at sophisticated Limited Partners (LPs) who invest in funds. Let me […]
The Pivot You Need to Read About
GOAT just announced it raised $5 million in venture capital led by our friends at Matrix Partners. On the surface that sounds unremarkable — fundings happen daily. But this isn’t just any funding. GOAT (“Greatest of All Time) is a sneakerhead marketplace that is en fuego, but we led the company’s last financing round in […]
Why Computer Vision Tracking the Flow of People Will be a Huge Market
As I’ve written before I believe Computer Vision will become a major factor as a Human-Computer Interface (1) as sensors and cameras help us make sense of our physical world. There is so much in the media about “The Internet of Things” that it has lost meaning and for many for some strange reason […]
Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot: From Day 0 to IPO. What Went to Plan. What Most Certainly Didn’t (Video + Transcript)
In anticipation of the upcoming SaaStr Annual 2017, we’ll be releasing the full series of transcripts and videos from all the awesome 2016 sessions. There are rules in starting an enterprise software company. You will fail if you: 1) try to build a suite of products out of the gate, 2) focus solely on SMBs, or 3) […]
Why Some SaaS Companies Stall Out at $20m ARR
Part of my job when I invest in a start-up is to get folks excited about the company. It’s not that hard. Because I am genuinely excited. Or I wouldn’t make the investment . And part of the picture I try to paint for the The Next Investor is where they’ll be in 12-18 months. E.g., […]
