BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
Posts Tagged ‘Entrepreneurs’
November 24 2009
by Scott Johnson
Is the EU actually right about something?
> Update on 11/30. I spoke to several of my companies, and learned that MySQL from Sun is not something they can’t live without. They would prefer Oracle didn’t own it, but the premise that Oracle will harm startups as an owner of MySQL is not true. The argument that Sun/MySQL is the preferred vendor ...
November 11 2009
by John Backus
Venture Capital: 5 tips on how to navigate the VC gauntlet
Early-Stage venture capital firms see every imaginable type of business idea. Since we are the first institutional fundraising “gate” that entrepreneurs have to pass through, the variety of business plans which we see fill the spectrum from awful to terrific. Over the years I have seen lots of bad ideas: Bad ideas for big businesses. ...
November 10 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
5 things to know about creating a financial model for your business
When pitching your business to venture investors, sharing a well designed financial model is very important! Why? Because how a financial model is designed helps investors learn some things about you and your business: it provides insights into how you think about your business, helps clarify what are the main assumptions that drive it and ...
November 3 2009
by Tim Rowe
MIT $100K Elevator Pitch Competition
This past Thursday was the Grand Finale of the MIT $100K Competition’s precursor competition, known as the EPC or Elevator Pitch Competition. Over 350 entrants had made their 60-second pitches over the past several days to persevering judges. The resulting twelve finalists did not yet know who they were, however everyone who was in the ...
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 ...
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 ...
July 15 2009
by Tim Rowe
Non-compete agreements and trash cans
I wrote an article this morning for Xconomy about non-competes. A likened the way companies tie up employees to the way we Bostonians sometimes get it in our heads to tie up parking spaces with an old trash can. If you’ve spent hours digging out a parking space, by golly nobody else is going to park ...
July 15 2009
by John Backus
Why This? Why Now?
My partner Tim Rowe always asks in our investment committee meetings, “Why This? Why Now?”. It is a great pair of questions. And ones every entrepreneur should ponder when starting their business. It is really two separate questions, each of which I would argue needs a convincing answer to place the company in the category of ...
July 11 2009
by John Backus
Sell-To or Sell-Through?
Not a week goes by in our weekly investment committee meetings when one of us doesn’t ask the question, about a business we are evaluating, “Are they successful at selling through, or just selling to?”. The distinction may sound inconsequential. But I suggest that it is critical. “Sell-to” means you are good at selling your ...
July 11 2009
by John Backus
Can we Balance the Budget by Taxing the Rich?
144,000 people in the State of California pay half of all of the income taxes collected in a state with 38M people. That is a startling statistic. .37% of the population paying 50% of income taxes. And income taxes are almost half of California’s revenue. Underlying that statistic is the unspoken “problem” which is behind ...
