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Silicon Valley is Like High School
The quote of the week (at least in my world) was from one of the CEO’s I work with regarding Silicon Valley.

Giving Up Salary for Equity After VC Funding
I got a great question the other day which highlights the tension that can emerge in an early stage company between VCs and entrepreneurs.

What All VCs Share
In my PE Week column a while back I said that there no best practises in venture capital. A long-time industry veteran emailed agreement, but said that the best VCs do share two characteristics.

Harmonix Music Systems - Now That's How An Angel Deal Should Work
I’ve invested in over 50 angel deals in the past 12 years. Several have been big winners for me, a few have done ok, and some have failed. Many are still active – including several that I did before I started making venture capital investments in 1996.

Entrepreneurs, VCs, and Peeing on a Burning Bush
Many surreal things have happened to me as I hang with entrepreneurs (including the time a runaway golf cart ran me over, but I digress). A recent incident, however, just joined the pantheon.

What Does It Take to Scale A Web 2.0 Startup?
Last year, the meme of “you can start a company for minimal capital” made the rounds. This is still true. But – it’s not trivial to scale a company for minimal capital (it’s possible, but an exception, not the norm.) This meme is starting to make the rounds – Heather Green at BusinessWeek just wrote an article titled Make-or-Break Time For The Net Newbies.

The Temporal Dependence of a VC's "No"
If Marc doesn't stop writing such great posts I'm going to personally hunt him down and unplug his Macbook. It's making the rest of us look like unthinking layabouts.

Advice du Jour: Do Whatever Gets You Tenure
I was recently talking to a CEO friend of mine who is having trouble with his board. He thinks there is a very good chance that he will soon be fired.

Is Canada the New China for VCs? Or Just the New Colorado?

Granted, it's a tiny market, but with the disappearance of most of the tax-advantaged venture capital firms from the Canadian market it's interesting to see that U.S. venture firms are increasingly driving things. There was 21% growth year-over-year in Canadian venture investment, but that was largely a function of the growing dominance of U.S. VCs in the Canadian market, with such firms now accounting for more than half of investment spending in Ontario, Canadian's largest venture market.

The Venture Capital Capital Calamity Thing

Yo, BusinessWeek, the Trouble with VCs is not a new story. And Web 2.0 is not a "legitimately exciting frontier". Nevertheless, it is good fun reading this wildly bearish piece about the venture capital business. It touches on some legit issues, and will get attention. The VC industry is at a crossroads, no question, but things also look way worse than they are if you look at the VC biz solely through an IT lens.

Planes, Trains, and AutomobilesShare
By the time you read this I'll be in New York (right now I'm on a plane.) If you follow me (or any of my partners) on twitter, you will quickly understand why a Boulder entrepreneur recently referred to twitter as the "Foundry Group location / travel finder."

Give Your VCs Assignments

Over the weekend, Mark Suster wrote a great post titled How To Communicate with your Investors between Board Meetings. Mark continues to just tear it up with great advice for entrepreneurs. However, he left out one thing from the post – which is one of my favorite pieces of advice for entrepreneurs. Give your venture capitalists (and board members) assignments Mark alludes to this in many of his suggestions but he never comes out and says it. And, amazingly to me, many entrepreneurs either don’t ever think of this or don’t feel comfortable doing it. They should.

3 Key Factors For Raising Capital
Raising venture capital is hard. Statistics show that only 2 to 5% of startups successfully get their business plans funded by VCs. One of the main reasons startups are not able to raise capital is because they approach investors before they are really ready-- i.e., before they are "venture worthy." This article discusses three key factors that will help improve your chances of getting funded.

Seven Deadly Sins of Startups
Everybody has his favorites for this list, so I thought I would share mine. It’s always painful when a startup fails, but as a mentor to founders I would hope that you can learn from these experiences and not stumble on the same issues.

PREPARE to Fund Your Technology Development

Finding funding for technology development can be a daunting process. Sources of funding, which include Federal Grants, State economic development funds, debt financing from investment banks, and equity funding from Angels or Venture Capital, will use some form of rating to determine your suitability for funding. This article presents a schema for evaluating a venture's "Funding Readiness Level (FRL) ®", which includes the market readiness of the technology or "Technology Readiness Level (TRL)", the maturity of the business or "Business Readiness Level (BRL)", and the ability of the venture to manage the deal process and negotiate in its own best interest or "Dealsmanship". (This article appears in the Jan/Feb 2006 issue of The Austin Business District magazine.)

Perfecting Your Pitch: Winning the Hearts and Minds of Investors
The keys to increasing your effectiveness with prospective investors. This article provides a detailed overview of the components of a winning presentation, and it provides tips on what to do, and what not to do, if you want to persuade investors to finance your company.


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