What Do LPs Think of the Venture Capital Markets for 2016?
At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. While I’m not an LP, the following post represents my discussions with more than 100 LP firms – specifically ones that do fund […]
Laugh, Vote, Change Lives
These international startups need your help in making their SaaS dreams come true. Companies from all over the world (seriously, five continents!) have submitted their videos for our “Show Us Your SaaS” international startup competition in the hopes of winning tickets and travel to the SaaStr Annual. Now it’s in your hands, SaaStr fans. Who’s going to […]
Why Lawsuits Are On the Rise at Startups and What To Do About It
Lawsuits. I’m so tired of the nature of the legal system in the United States where bullying, intimidation and mobster-like shake-downs are becoming prevalent. As I write these words I already imagine my next deposition in which I’m asked to read this out loud. Lawsuits are becoming so prevalent these days. Even when I’m not […]
Don’t Worry About Losing All Your Investors’ Money
In both my start-ups, I was constantly worried about losing all my investors’ money. The first time, my first start-up which we haven’t talked about, NanoGram Devices, I mainly worried about it because I realized we’d almost never have enough capital to achieve our long-term goals. So, FBOW, we sold for $50,000,000 after 12.5 months. […]
When Does Establishing a Good Startup Culture Outweigh Being Cheap?
Almost every startup company starts off “scrappy” and there’s a well established culture in the tech startup scene to embrace the “be cheap at all costs” mentality. So we have the proverbial garage startup or the small team working on desks that are handmade out of scrap wood or former doors from a construction site. But […]
If You Don’t Have a Truly Great Founding Team, Just Take a Pause. Don’t Start Your Start-Up Yet.
Ok I know this post and its title seems like the most obvious thing in the world. But empirically, I can tell you isn’t. Over the past 12 months, I’ve met with friends/colleagues/partners/ex-customers who are total rockstars and working on starting a company. I mean, total rockstars. (Yes, I know that’s an abused team). What […]
Mentoring TechStars Cloud, and an Invitation to Apply
Just looking at the success that TechStars companies have post demo day is a real validation of the program – it creates amazing team building opportunities, awesome visibility for the startups involved and fantastic access to angels and early stage investors.
Startup Mantra: Hire Fast, Fire Fast
I have often said that what separates real entrepreneurs from pundits and bystanders is a bias towards getting things done versus over analyzing things. My credo has always been JFDI. It’s the hardest thing to teach people who come out of big companies, out of conservative jobs. At the big consulting firms, investment banks and […]
