Private Equity
My book, Mastering the VC Game, is officially available today (and 40 pages of excerpts are available for free if you want to preview it), yet I'm kind of grumpy. I've gotten nice reviews (see AVC, Boston.com and YoungEntrepreneur for a few examples) and TechCrunch, BusinessWeek and Upromise have done really nice excerpts. But I confess I'm a bit of a perfectionist (when I'd come home with a 95% on a test, my parents would ask me what happened on those 5% points - I wonder if that has anything to do with it?) and so I find myself mulling about the mistakes I made with it. Tangible, print products are tough because, unlike a blog post or a piece of software code, you can't just change it on the fly. Here are the top three things I've been stewing on:
2 min read · 29 April 2010
4 min read · 26 April 2010
This past Friday was my last day at Spark Capital. It has been a privilege to be a part of this team. I have grown in ways that I didn’t expect, and was glad to be part of a firm that allowed me to interact with such wonderful entrepreneurs and early stage investors each day. I owe a lot to the partners at Spark for their support and mentorship and am proud to say that I was a part of building this firm over the past several years. When you end something and embark on a new adventure, it’s always important to look back. I didn’t really intend to become an investor when I moved back to Boston from Silicon Valley. But I did, and I learned so much that it’s hard to distill into a few points. But here are a few highlights:
4 min read · 26 April 2010
Some time ago I wrote a post on tips and best practices that I felt startups ought to consider in getting the most out of media relationships. The impetus had to do with recent reports I had been getting from portfolio companies about media interviews that had not gone as well as company management had hoped. Story angles had been mishandled, sensitive information had been unwittingly divulged, and statements were seemingly taken out of context. In this piece I’d like to cover a sunnier subject: How to effectively run a media event. Last night, portfolio company Runka.com, a destination site for eco-friendly products at discount prices, conducted its first formal media mixer in San Francisco. I prefer to use the term “mixer” as opposed to ”launch party” given that the site went live some weeks ago and, quite frankly, “launch party” still carries with it some dot-com era connotations for many in the start-up/VC community. To this day I have a hard time seeing the phrase “launch party” on an invite without it conjuring up images of hosted martini bars and overflowing trays of sushi in a wildly overpriced nightclub.
7 min read · 23 April 2010
4 min read · 22 April 2010
2 min read · 22 April 2010
3 min read · 20 April 2010
In investor parlance, there is an oft-expressed and colorful turn-of-phrase called "hair on the deal," which immediately signals the kiss of death for a company's investment prospects. There are, of course, grammatical and regional variations on this expression but the implication and import are always one and the same: that the company in question will not get funded. Among investors discussing a deal, the mere whiff of this hirsute quality will often suffice to end a discussion of the company's merits and shortcomings. In this post, however, I intend to delve into exactly what the range of characteristics exhibited by a company and/or its founders are that embody this dreaded state of 'hairiness.'
4 min read · 19 April 2010
As an eternal optimist, I wake most days with a bright perspective. Today, I woke in a particularly good mood and before heading out for an early-morning workout, I sat down at my computer with a cup of french-pressed to scan the morning’s stories. One thing I came across was a blog post by Ben Horowitz, a tremendously successful entrepreneur who recently became a venture capitalist, partnering with Mark Andreessen to form Andreessen Horowitz. Now by all accounts, Ben’s a terrific guy who is passionate about building great businesses and I think it’s fantastic that guys like Mark and Ben have chosen to use their vast experience to help a whole new generation of entrepreneurs build their companies. However, as I read through Ben’s post, my sunny mood went downhill. I read it twice and I grew ticked off that Ben chose to rant about things that VCs do that he doesn’t like. I chalked it up to the fact that Ben probably had a bad experience with a VC yesterday and decided to vent a little bit. I jumped on the bike and began to pedal. As the miles went by, I couldn’t get Ben’s comments out of my mind. It bothered me that a prominent guy like Ben, after only nine months as a VC, took time on his bully pulpit to rant about the behavior of his colleagues.
4 min read · 14 April 2010
3 min read · 12 April 2010
