BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
Posts Tagged ‘Tips’
May 31 2011
by Scott Johnson
Way Too Early – On Market Timing
Market timing is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for venture success. Obvious, right? The problem is that timing is obvious only in retrospect. Predicting how markets will evolve is an art, and probably is the single most important job of a venture firm. Boiled down to its essence, our role is to help companies ...
May 2 2011
by Scott Johnson
Waste = Opportunity
Waste is something I abhor. Waste of time, waste of resource, I love funding businesses that help others be more efficient and stop waste. Time wasters are fertile ground for new business ideas. If anyone is wasting your time, think about how that happened and create a solution for it. Resource wasters are also ...
March 12 2010
by Thanasis Delistathis
Pitching your business? Keep it simple!
Back in elementary school, we all had to buy these school notebooks with the school insignia in the front. On the back of the book there was a quote in three languages. It was a famous quote from Pascal Blaise that went something like: “I made this letter longer than usual because I did not ...
February 25 2010
by John Backus
VC Tips for Entrepreneurs: How to manage the VC on your Board
Venture Capitalists love giving advice to startup entrepreneurs. We especially love doing it while in the boardroom, before, during, and after that 40-slide powerpoint presentation that you and your management team spent a week preparing. With a VC on your board of directors, you never know if you are going to get The Good, The ...
February 25 2010
by John Backus
VC Tips for Entrepreneurs: Thoughts About Raising Money
Most entrepreneurs raise money to help their businesses get off the ground. Whether from angels or venture capitalists, I see most entrepreneurs making the same mistake. They raise money when they “have to.” There is a better way. With some advance planning, you can raise money, easier, at certain moments in time. Take advantage of ...
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 ...
June 2 2009
by John Backus
Top 5 Reasons No VC Will Read Your Email
Top 5 Reasons No VC Will Read Your Email You start your email “Dear Investor.” At least pretend that you are only sending your idea to us! In the “to” filed, you copy include 100’s of VCs. Again, make us feel special. We are an early stage fund and you are trying to raise $50M. ...
May 14 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
Tip No 3: Send the deck, not the business plan or the one-pager
We get dozens of proposals for investment every month. The time to screen those is limited so entrepreneurs need to make that easy.The first screen for VCs is: Is this a business that is a good fit for our fund and that I should pay attention to? Sending the business plan requires a larger investment ...
May 11 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
Tip No 2: Financial models and projections : keep it simple
I had a discussion last week with a very successful entrepreneur which reminded me of some of the follies I have seen over the years with startups and financial models. Here is the basic idea: keep it simple! No one can predict the future. Adding pages and pages of assumptions and complicated calculations doesn’t provide ...
May 6 2009
by Thanasis Delistathis
Tip #1: Explain your business in simple terms
Memo to entrepreneurs: can you explain to your mother what your business does and what problem it solves? Great. Now explain to VCs the same way. Here is a mythbuster for you: VCs don’t need to hear buzzwords to think you are smart. In fact, the more buzzwords they hear the more they think: (a) ...
