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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
This is part of my ongoing series “ Start Up Advice ” but I’d really like to call this post, “VC Advice.” We exchanged ideas when I was an entrepreneur along side him in NorCal in 05-07 and my point-of-view on founder / VC relationships hasn’t shifted even 1% since I went to the dark side.
The net effect for [my company] for example is we are now doing reasonably well. 8221;
If a company has reached a level of success, has been around for a few years and you believe the company has potential to break out into a much bigger company then
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
This is part of my blog series “ Pitching a VC .” I’ve sat through a lot of VC pitches and having been CEO of an enterprise software firm for many years I’ve also sat through many customer meetings with sales teams.
In the best case they might prefer to ask you questions but you didn’t prompt them and they’re being polite (although this is less likely in VC who are not known for being wallflowers !).
8221;
There is one classic mistake that I see across both types of meetings – “the tell & sell” presentation.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios.
You’ve found a VC partner or principal who has invited you to the Monday partners’ meeting. This is true whether your at a sales meeting or at a VC firm. Congratulations. Or on a sales campaign you’ve finally gotten your project sponsor to take you to the “executive committee” where decisions are made and budgets are agreed.
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Monday, November 9, 2009
This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital .
Many businesses that pitch to me have White Elephant issues and I’d like to tell you how to deal with these when you’re raising venture capital. White White Elephant issues are those things that the VC would automatically be thinking about when you’re speaking but he/she may not immediately ask you about either for legal reasons or out of courtesy.
There’s an old saying that if I’m talking with you and I start the conversation by saying, “whatever you do, DO NOT think about Elephants ” then you can’t help but thinking about elephants while we’re speaking. It’s
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
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 as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). This morning we heard from Jamie Montgomery, CEO of the venerable Montgomery & Co investment bank who is at the heart of what is going on in M&A for venture backed companies. They Montgomery & Co Projects Deal Volume to Grow by 167% in Just 2 Years with No End to Growth in Sight
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Thursday, December 3, 2009
This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series
When people refer to a strategic investor they are usually talking about an investor that comes from the industry you serve as opposed to an independent venture capital investor. I But the venture guys don’t make the calls on what the product / business guys do. The Yesterday I had lunch with a really interesting and capable serial entrepreneur who is raising his A round. The The topic of ”strategic” investors came up. It
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009
I attended the Los Angeles Dealmaker event that featured several angel and seed-stage investors on the panel: Jarl Mohn, Scott Sangster ( Organic Startup ), Rob Hayes ( First Round Capital ), and Thomas McInerney (TGM). The The audience of entrepreneurs were witness to some candid discussion on how to make contact, structure deals, and manage relationships with angel investors as well as some of the differences between angel investors and venture capital investors.
If you attend many of these events, you often hear the question, “How am I supposed to contact an angel investor or venture capital investor?”
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Thursday, March 11, 2010
Yesterday I wrote a post about how much capital your startup should raise . In In general when capital is available take it (provided it’s on the right conditions and from the best people from whom you can raise). It’s Here’s an example of one comment I received,
“So In that post I was talking about how it is a bad strategy to be underfunded. In It’s also bad to raise too much, too early. If
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Sunday, October 25, 2009
Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings)
I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. If One theme that This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice . I If you pick the wrong spouse at least you can get divorced.
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Sunday, October 7, 2007
I've been reading or hearing quite a bit about how startups these days don't take nearly as much capital to create as they used to. If that's actually true, then it creates New Rules Of Technology VC . In this post RWW talks about some of the new kind of approaches to funding: Y Combinator is creating tech companies with a tiny (10-20K) seed investment; Charles River Ventures started a Quick start program; Jeff Clavier launched What used to cost $1M now takes $100K. Each of these is aimed at effectively providing earlier, smaller financing rounds.
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