BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
October 27 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
Why is it hard to monetize ad-driven businesses? Answer: it’s not if you have the right people.
About a month ago, I was talking to Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Ventures about the state of the advertising market. Many of our portfolio companies have a free, ad-supported business model. So the ability to get revenue is correlated to the ability to sell the advertising inventory at attractive rates.
We both marveled at how ...
October 27 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
YES on net neutrality!
The debate is raging on the merits and pitfalls of “net neutrality”. The lobbyists are working overtime. Both sides have employed semantics to try to appeal to the average citizen who may not be as versed on the nuances of policy in this area: according to supporters it’s about innovation; about according to critics it is ...
October 23 2009
by John Backus
Executive Compensation
Today I turn the blog over to Walt Shill, a CEO of one of our portfolio companies many years ago, and now a very senior executive at Accenture. I love the way Walt thinks and writes – and post this below with his permission. The topic is executive compensation, but at the end he has ...
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 ...
October 20 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
Opportunity knocks: Yellow Pages move online
A number of industries are undergoing a kind of dislocation as the internet becomes a dominant medium for finding information and entertainment. One of those industries is the yellow pages industry. It is currently a $26BN global industry; $14BN in the US. The Kelsey Group projects that the portion of that market ...
October 16 2009
by Scott Johnson
Well Spaced Bread Crumbs
In the story of Hansel and Gretel, Hansel drops breadcrumbs as he is carted away with Gretel, leaving a trail to follow for any would-be rescuer. This was a good strategy except that bread crumbs are edible. But that is aside from the point of this post, which is that investors need an ...
September 30 2009
by Scott Johnson
Make your customers surly?
My partner Todd Hixon relates a story about when he was a young analyst meeting with a crusty old telco exec to talk about pricing, and was told that they wanted to price so their customers were “surly, but not rebellious.”
“How hilariously old school” you are thinking. “Isn’t Steve Jobs’ ability to delight his customers ...
September 21 2009
by Scott Johnson
“Tranched” Investments
We occasionally do investments in stages or “tranches” where we put an initial amount of money into a company, with the option to put more in later when certain milestones are met. Some investors like to do this, and some are philosophically opposed. The opposing view is that contingent cash based on uncertain milestones adds ...
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 ...
September 11 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
In search of the next “Rocket Ship”
How long does it take promising young startups with large potential markets to scale to $50MM? Longer than you might think if you looked at the projections of the average startup that comes through our door.
An article in the Wall Street Journal Blogs online discusses how long it took many well known public companies to ...
