BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
Author Archive
February 25 2010
by Todd Hixon
Five Reasons To Believe in Tablets
We recently made an investment in Tap ‘n Tap; they provide an Android-based software framework that enables OEMs to create tablets that compete with the Apple iPad. You have to believe a couple of things for this investment to work out: 1) the tablet market will be big, 2) Android will be a major ...
February 12 2010
by Todd Hixon
Pay to Pitch?
Should entrepreneurs pay third parties to help raise money? This is a perennial question in the venture world. It comes down to two things:
Will the investment in outside help pay off?
Will investors see paying for help as a negative factor?
There are different kinds of fund-raising help. The main ones are: “investment ...
February 9 2010
by Todd Hixon
The Seduction of Venture Debt
Summon up your picture of a VC: insouciant air, expensive casual clothes, youthful with a touch of gray for gravitas, cruising the 101 in a Porsche, thinking about moving up to a Tesla. Does this guy have a sub-prime mortgage? No way, you think! But probably he does, not on his house but on his ...
January 8 2010
by Todd Hixon
The Power of Tying Services to Products
Consumer marketers speak of “Moments of Truth”. I had one last night. I walked the dog in the evening and, later, when I went to put my iPhone on the charger, the phone and its holster were gone. The phone was set to silent. Merde! I retraced my steps with another ...
January 4 2010
by Todd Hixon
Sizzle and Steak: The Importance of Profitability
The management team of one of my venture capital backed companies (pseudonym “Hermes”) recently floated this trial balloon: “We’re now profitable at reasonable scale [Ed: after years of hard work and much investment]. We have the beginnings of a great company. We should raise a big venture round and use the money to ...
November 19 2009
by Todd Hixon
The Death of B2B Venture Capital?
At the October 21 Xconomy “Global Vision for Venture Capital …” forum, Terry McGuire remarked that Polaris has stopped taking risk on commercial/industrial technology start-ups, as the recent experience has not been good. That’s a consequential thing. “Commercial/industrial technology” encompasses enterprise software, most of telecom and datacom, and large parts of clean tech. ...
November 3 2009
by Todd Hixon
How We Survived 2009
The CEO of one of my portfolio companies, which I will call “Ajax” (not the real name), wrote this as part of his regular report to the senior team, board, and investors. It’s pretty typical of what it’s been like out there this year, and what CEOs, management teams, and boards did to manage ...
October 27 2009
by Todd Hixon
Notes from the October 21 Xconomy Forum
The title of the forum was “A Global Vision of Venture Capital and Private Equity”. This grandiose-sounding title was chosen, I suspect, to honor one of the panelists, Peter Brooke, who is indeed a pioneer of Global VC and PE.
The other panelist was Terry McGuire, a long-time and successful Boston VC who is a founder ...
October 23 2009
by Todd Hixon
Players, Stayers, and Payers
Last month, Intuit, the leader in personal finance software, announced it would acquire Mint.com for $170m (5.3x paid-in capital two years after first funding). High fives all around! Mint offers a unique, far-easier way for consumers to organize personal finances and budgets on the web, bringing in information from numerous accounts. People adopted it and ...
September 15 2009
by Todd Hixon
Tips For A Good First Pitch
You are setting out to raise the first financing round for your start-up business. You sit down to draft a pitch. What should it say? [We’re early stage investors, so these ideas are geared to the companies we see, which are typically raising their first round of investment from professional (“institutional”) investors.]
Let’s start with first ...
