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Featured Lessons learned

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Go faster on an uphill

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, October 27, 2008 | Comments

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Gain from adversity; Running lessons that can be applied to the startup marathon

"When you’re coming to a hill, most everyone slows down," said Jim Kollegger, NY-based venture capitalist at Genesys Partners. "Don’t slow down, maintain your pace. In fact, speed up. When you get to the top of the hill, you will have left them in the dust and you’ll have a big chance of beating your competitors." For anyone who's a ...

The best equity is sweat equity

by Mark Cuban, October 23, 2008 | Comments (3)

	Here are rules for success The Rules of Success As MicroSolutions became more and more successful, and as I paid attention to the common traits of businesses that I saw succeed and those I saw fail, I came to realize that there are “Rules of Success” that I saw in companies that excelled. Where companies failed to follow those rules, inevitably, they failed. I found ...
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Cash is king

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, October 20, 2008 | Comments (2)

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Guy Kawasaki warns of VC's half-glass-full sentiment, and why FilmLoop failed while Slide succeeded

In the month of October, we've seen startups such as Zivity, Seesmic, Adbrite, Zillow, and hi5 reduce their headcount to stretch out their dollars. Meanwhile, venture capitalists have been quick to dish out gloom and doom. Venture capitalist Bill Gurley of Benchmark, and angel investor Ron Conway, and partners at Sequoia Capital (whose PPT is embedded below) have told their ...

Survival in an advertising recession

by Jeremy Liew, October 10, 2008 | Comments (1)

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Which online media companies will make it through

As I have mentioned previously, we are entering an overall advertising recession and even online advertising growth has slowed. Notes the LA Times in August: “Advertisers have pulled back in a pretty meaningful way, and display is feeling the brunt of it,” said Clay Moran, a Stanford Group analyst who recently wrote a research report called “Online Advertising: caution required.” ...

Brad Feld: Don't make me say 'No' twice

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, October 8, 2008 | Comments

	When maybe means no, and no means absolutely not! What's worse than getting rejected? It's being rejected by the same investor, over and over and over again. So, don't make them have to say no more than once. "Most entrepreneurs, when they hear that [rejection], they try to press on... and keep coming back for more," said Brad Feld, an early stage investor and co-founder of Foundry Group and ...
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Better to fail fast, than to drag it out

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, August 4, 2008 | Comments (1)

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Founders Fund's Singerman says learn how to adapt and move on

Brian Singerman is an angel investor and a VC at Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based VC, started by former PayPal founders, Slide, Facebook, Zivity, Quantcast, and now Clickable (with the just-announced $14.5 million round raised). In this segment of "Lessons learned," Brian raises important points for entrepreneurs, specifically the virtue of failing fast. "There's nothing wrong with failing fast," Brian ...

Venture capital economics

by Don Dodge, August 3, 2008 | Comments

	Why VCs look for 10X returns VCs want to invest at least $5M in startups that have potential 10X returns. That is because it takes as much time to manage a $1M investment as it does to manage $5M. Secondly, every startup looks like a winner when they write the check, but Fred Wilson suggests that 33% will fail, 33% will break even, and 33% will ...
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The Entrepreneur Commons - take 2

by Marc Dangeard, July 22, 2008 | Comments (1)

	Exploring a new model for seed funding After looking at VCs, and after managing the European American Angel Club for two years now, I have come to the conclusion that entrepreneurs are not really being served properly when it comes to seed funding. And I would like therefore to propose the concept of an Entrepreneur Commons to help with the issue.I have seen are roughly three types ...
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The Entrepreneur Commons

by Marc Dangeard, July 18, 2008 | Comments

	Exploring a new way to fund startups After looking at VCs, and after managing the European American Angel Club for two years now, I have come to the conclusion that entrepreneurs are not really being served properly when it comes to seed funding. And I would like therefore to propose the concept of an Entrepreneur Commons to help with the issue.I have seen are roughly three types ...
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Lessons Learned: Overspending can kill your startup

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, July 1, 2008 | Comments (1)

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Many first-time entrepreneurs overspend, said Tim Chang, a venture capital partner at Norwest Venture Partners. It is one of their biggest mistakes when they first receive funds, they operate as though they were larger. To this end, entrepreneurs need to be "disciplined." (Watch the interview for ways to discipline yourself.) Additionally, another big mistake entrepreneurs make is thinking too big and losing focus. "Startups don't die of starvation," Tim said. "They die of indigestion." Essentially, Tim means that startups have ...

Lessons Learned: Raman Khanna on turning ideas into products

by John Shinal, June 24, 2008 | Comments

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As the former CTO of Stanford University, Raman Khanna of Onset Ventures spent more than a decade sifting through proposals from faculty members who hoped to commercialize their research.It was a perfect training ground for being a venture capitalist, says Khanna, who invested in many Stanford entrepreneurs after he left the university to found Diamondhead Ventures.At Diamondhead, which merged with Onset last year, Khanna worked with an ecosystem of faculty advisers and industry executives to help sift through the ideas.The ...

How to pitch VCs

by Jeremy Liew, June 10, 2008 | Comments

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Rick Segal’s (a VC in Canada) recent post made me smile with recognition: It’s around 2a in Toronto, midnight here in Edmonton. 260 summaries, plans, ideas, and virtual napkins are staring at me with an evil grin. It can feel like it is hard to get a VC’s attention. I’d like to think that it isn’t because we’re bad people, and it isn’t because we’re lazy people. But we do get pitched a lot, and the ambient noise level is ...

Common mistakes entrepreneurs make

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, June 3, 2008 | Comments (1)

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CBS Interactive's Marquez says, 'Be focus and have one objective'

As the head of M&A and investments at CBS Interactive, Mike Marquez gets pitched often. To that end, it's good to have an understanding of what he looks for in companies he'd buy or invest in or partner with. Like many investors and entrepreneurs, Mike advises entrepreneurs to be laser focused on one strategy and one value proposition. While this ...

How Vinod Khosla pitched Sun Microsystems

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, May 8, 2008 | Comments (1)

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High-profile VC shares the virtues of a short and sweet business plan

We had highlighted Vinod Khosla's "lessons learned" in our newsroom last year, when he advised entrepreneurs to have "passionate conviction." This time, for his lessons to entrepreneurs, Vinod talks about how he pitched Sun Microsystem to investors about 25 years ago. Vinod started Sun with his cofounders Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Bil Joy. According to Vinod, a short and ...

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