BeyondVC » Entrepreneurship

A wise VC once told me when dinner is served, you eat. When it comes to fundraising, I’ve learned that if someone is trying to invest now, you should strike while the iron is hot. Given that th...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2016/01/series-rounds-enterprise.html

Since we are seed investors in enterprise technology, I am often asked this question. The answer on the surface seems quite obvious — generate as much revenue as you can to prove that custo...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2015/10/enterprise-customers-engagement.html

I was on the phone yesterday with the CEO of one of our portfolio companies, and we were talking about goals for the next few months and in particular, what the company needed to get a Series A d...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2015/03/revenues-kill-dream.html

When Willie Sutton, the prolific bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks, he answered, “because that’s where the money is.” When asked by investors in early 2010, why we were starting a...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2015/03/take-enterprise-tech.html

As we look into 2014, we thought it was important to reflect on our activities in 2013 and refocus and refine our thinking and messaging as a firm. We are thematic in our approach and primarily k...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2014/02/boldstart-ventures-2014-ethos.html

External branding starts with developing a consistent, internal message first. When you think of branding and positioning, remember that your first line of offense and the most important represen...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2013/05/branding-first-starts-with-your-team.html

I am sure you can see a common thread in many of my recent posts – Sales, Sales, Sales!  I don’t care how great your product is because without an ability to articulate the value proposition...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2013/01/camping-out-and-closing-deals.html

When I worked for Cutco Knives one summer in college selling the world’s finest cutlery, my dream was to sell the Homemaker +8 at every meeting.  It was the Rolls Royce of knife sets and in e...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2012/09/cutco_knives_and_startups.html

Lately questions about Intellectual Property or IP have been cropping up left and right.  Eliot Durbin (my partner at BOLDstart Ventures) and I had a long discussion this morning in preparation ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2012/05/startups-and-intellectual-property-ip.html

I know I may be dating myself here, but over the past few weeks I couldn’t help but think about the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High and one of the standout characters, Jeff Spicoli.  When a...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2012/01/what-entrepreneurs-can-learn-from-jeff-spicoli.html

As a young kid, I was always taught the valuable lesson of never giving up or quitting.  No matter how many times you get knocked down, you have to stand up and keep moving.  That is the same t...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/10/never-give-up-but-move-on-quickly.html

“No Man’s Land” is traditionally known as the area between two trenches.  This is a reference to World War I and the vicious trench warfare and hand-to-hand combat that characterized that...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/09/startups-getting-caught-in-no-mans-land.html

OK, I may be biased having been an early stage VC based out of New York since 1996, but I must say that the vibe, energy, and people at the Techstars NYC Demo Day event yesterday was simply aweso...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/04/the-new-york-startup-market-rocks-and-is-real.html

Every 3 months I dig through my “passed company” folder to look at what investment opportunities we passed on and why.  Inevitably, there are a few companies that are near-misses, but we end...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/04/reflecting-on-passed-investments.html

I had a tough call with an entrepreneur this morning.  His company raised a fair amount of seed financing but did not hit the milestones it needed to in order to raise a real round of venture ca...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/02/know-when-to-hold-em-know-when-to-fold-em.html

As a VC who invests in seed and first rounds, I love revenue just as much as the next guy.  However, the focus on revenue should play second fiddle to a user/customer first experience.  Over th...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/01/put-your-users-first.html

I remember when we hired a new CEO for one of our portfolio companies and my tip to him was to overcommunicate.  We had a few large VCs on the board and a number of high-profile angels that coul...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/10/standard-investor-update-for-startups.html

After meeting with a number of entrepreneurs I recently seed funded, it was clear to me that one of the major challenges founders face is how to continue to scale their management style.  My pre...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/09/scaling-your-management-style.html

It's not easy to build a service that everyone loves and even harder to build one that gets 3000 new users a day on an installed base of 2 million users.  Once there you may think of yourself in...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/09/the-consumer-internet-business-is-not-easy.html

Congratulations to Greenplum and Scott Yara, Bill Cook, and Luke Lonergan in particular! It has been quite a roller coaster ride over the last 10 years and there were a number of times we stared ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/07/emc-buys-portfolio-company-greenplum-more-behind-the-story.html

As I have stressed over the years, it is imperative for board members and their management teams to have open dialogue.  If you are a CEO, I encourage you to share more rather than less informat...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/04/4-types-of-ceo-behavior-when-dealing-with-boards.html

During the last month I have spent more time looking at Angel investments as I believe it is a great time to start a business.  However, one key question I keep asking myself after meeting with ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/03/is-it-a-feature-or-product.html

I was on a call yesterday with an inspired and talented management team.  As we walked through the deck, one point particularly struck me as I listened to their well-honed pitch.  The company w...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/01/market-positioning-for-startups-focus-focus-focus.html

While 2009 was a tough year, I must say that it was nice to see a number of our portfolio companies have blow out 4th quarters for bookings and growth.  Despite that, I am still taking a cautiou...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/01/when-to-ramp-sales.html

The other day I met with an entrepreneur I was advising as he prepared to raise his next round of funding.  In the meeting, he wanted me to narrow in and focus on his financial model.  Financia...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/12/startups-and-financial-models-for-saas-companies.html

Our washer and dryer was on the fritz today, and as I started to do some research on large capacity stackable units I started to get overwhelmed with all of the new terminology and features.  Af...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/09/washers-dryers-and-secret-sauce-why-naming-your-technology-is-important.html

I am not going to rehash Om Malik's excellent summary of "What went wrong with Joost" but I did want to dive deeper into a few points.  As I have always said, raising too much money can be a cur...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/07/lessons-from-joost.html

I was recently asked by a friend if he should get his son the new Nintendo DSi.  This would be an upgrade from the current DS and also add the photo capability.  As I thought about my own son's...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/06/i-want-it-now-i-want-it-real-time.html

I have made many posts in the past about focus and doing more with less, and as I continued on this path it reminded me of Occam's Razor, the idea that the simplest explanation to any problem is ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/06/occams-razor-and-venture.html

Jonathan Kay from Grasshopper sent me a great video on entrepreneurship.  First I love the inspirational message.  Secondly, I like the use of a viral video to cleverly promote his virtual PBX ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/05/inspirational-video-for-entrepreneurs.html

Pioneers get arrows in their backs – I have experienced it firsthand from an active investor's viewpoint and written about it in the past.  Being early in a market is great but being too early...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/04/pioneers-get-arrows-in-their-backs.html

I read a great article by James Surowiecki in the New Yorker the other day titled "Hanging Tough."  In the piece, James gives a historical perspective on companies that thrived and grew during p...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/04/growing-your-business-in-a-recession.html

No matter how many times I told my friend that he needed to get a deck together for a potential capital raise and model out some thoughts on market sizing and financials, I ran into resistance. ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/04/cover-the-basics-before-you-raise-capital.html

My expectations for 2009 are that things will get worse before they get better.  On the portfolio company side, I would rather have my companies growing at a lesser rate getting closer to breake...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/02/taking-advantage-of-the-horrible-environment.html

A friend of mine is putting together his first deck for potential investors.  In typical startup fashion, they launched a product, got a number of users, and then iterated several times to impro...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/01/positioning-and-pitch-decks-for-startups.html

Despite these tough times, there are still some bullheaded companies who think they can grow their way out of this mess or find the right M&A partner to bail them out.  I can guarantee you that ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/10/another-reason-to-watch-your-burn.html

I did an interview with Rich Maguire of Datamation last week which he just posted yesterday.  While the markets seemed to get excited for a day about the bank bailout, attention is turning towar...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/10/a-ray-of-light-in-this-environment.html

The alarm bells are ringing in Silicon Valley and start-up land today with Sequoia Capital and Ron Conway telling companies to prepare for the economic meltdown and to raise cash by cutting their...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/10/be-prudent-but.html

I received some incredible news last night from two portfolio company CEOs updating me on our Q3 numbers.  They not only hit their respective forecasts set early in the year, but they beat them....

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/10/delivering-on-q.html

Being in New York, it is hard to escape the realities of the ailing financial sector.  When I took the train into the city this morning I could see the somber look in people’s eyes knowing wha...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/09/doing-more-with.html

The economy is clearly slowing down and the IPO market is nonexistent.  As I have always said, this is the time to hunker down and tweak your business to get your model right.  If you are inter...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/08/ma-it-aint-ov.html

The world that we live in trades on reputation.  What that means is that eventually whether you are raising capital or landing new customers, your references will matter.  If you are an entrepr...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/06/how-to-handle-r.html

What I like to tell portfolio companies is that on average it will take 6 months to raise capital with some cycles being shorter and some being longer. Given that, it is imperative for a company ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/05/raising-capital.html

During the last month, I have been in board meetings and thinking to myself about what was going well and what wasn’t.  And when the discussion came to revenue, one common theme that always se...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/04/developing-your.html

I have recently met a number of startups with interesting consumer applications or services.  As expected, many of these startups have a vision to rely on advertising to pay the bills.  And lik...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/03/direct-ad-sales.html

I was waiting for this day to happen.  Each day I go online and also glance at the newspaper, and there is nothing but bad news.  And yes, it is true that some of the best technology companies ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/03/the-economic-he.html

Chris Anderson does a nice job of summarizing the rise of the "free" business model starting with the Razor/razor blade to the world of the web where he argues that all services eventually get pr...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/02/the-free-busine.html

I just got the 451 Group’s summary on the top M&A bankers for 2007.  As with 2006, Goldman Sachs was #1 on the list.  Take a look: Top five overall advisers, 2007                  �...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/02/top-tech-ma-adv.html

What a great move by Microsoft! This has been floating around for awhile and the last time I wrote about it was in May of 2007. Anyway, I thought I bought at the bottom for Yahoo months ago in wh...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/02/what-a-microsof.html

Congratulations to Bill, Scott and team on our new $27mm round of funding led by Meritech and including Sun Microsystems and SAP Ventures.  You guys have been pushing the envelope since I have k...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/01/greenplum-close.html

I got a call before the holidays from a prospective customer that I introduced to one of my portfolio companies.  He said he loved our product, saw it fitting in perfectly into their platform, b...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/01/show-me-the-lov.html

Here is another example of one of my portfolio companies’ mantras: Google giveth and Google taketh away (see my post from April for more on this).  Who knows the real reason why Google shut of...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/01/google-givethan.html

I was catching up on my feed reader this morning and noticed my friend Jeff Nolan’s post (also see Brad Feld) on Newsgator and FeedDemon RSS clients now being free.  I know that Jeff joined Ne...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/01/newsgator-goi.html

I had a great conversation wtih a friend of mine yesterday about the latest release of his product. He had mentioned that one of my clips from the Economist (see below) on Evan Williams from Blog...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/01/innovation-as-a.html

I have been a Ravens fan for quite awhile, and I am glad they finally made this move.  Being an avid sports fan and former DI lacrosse player, I have always tried to take lessons from the sports...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/01/changing-leader.html

Tis the holiday season and with the end of year comes budget planning for 2008. So that means it is time to get all of your key management members together to start reviewing 2007, what worked we...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/12/dont-forget-t-1.html

I have written many recent posts on Internet and web-based models, but I still do spend a good portion of my time with companies selling in the enterprise.  After a series of meetings over the l...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/12/its-hard-to-sel.html

I never made it to the Web 2.0 conference yesterday, and you know how I feel about that label :-).  Anyway, I happened to be in San Francisco for a portfolio company board meeting and some other...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/10/nyc-20-continue.html

as i have said before the big keep getting bigger and the low barriers to entry mean more and more small guys are fighting for crumbs. the only way to sustain is if dollars continue to flow from ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/10/are-there-enoug.html

It seems that everyday there is a new annoucement of a tiny startup being bought by a large company.  Two days ago it was Jaiku being bought by Google and this morning CBS announced that it is b...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/10/should-i-flip-o.html

I am sure you remember the ebay-Skype deal where ebay coughed up $2.6b upfront for Skype and offered an earnout of up to another $1.7b for hitting performance numbers.  Besides the value of the ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/10/on-performance.html

Before I dive into this post, I want to apologize to those who may be sensitive to the non-PC nature of this. Anyway, as always, I have met and spoken with a number of startups during the past we...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/09/too-many-chiefs.html

Over three years ago, I wrote a lengthy post on how to run a great board meeting.  And after having been at a few board meetings in the past couple of weeks, I was reminded again of one of the m...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/09/board-meeting-a.html

I am not here to pile on the Amp’d Mobile situation, but I find it is always important to learn as much as you can from your mistakes and from other people’s mistakes.  Rafat Ali has a great...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/07/learning-lesson.html

I was in two board meetings recently, and I was shocked at myself when I seemingly gave contradictory advice to two companies.  On the one hand, I told the first company to do whatever it takes ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/06/what-kind-of-cu.html

We all know the story – it is incredibly cheaper to start a web-based business versus 5 years ago with the rise of open source software and commodity servers.  However, while getting started w...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/06/dont_forget_to_.html

As an early stage investor and board member of several companies, I am fortunate to get the opportunity to work with some great entrepreneurs and also pattern match and observe trends, both good ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/05/transitioning_f.html

The rumors of a pending Microsoft-Yahoo deal are out in the market again today (see NYPost and Techmeme).  Who knows if it will happen but rest assured if it did, Microsoft would be in a pretty ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/05/what_a_microsof.html

The alarm bells are ringing in the web world (see the Techmeme discussion) – one of the gorillas in the space is flexing its muscle and protecting its turf as MySpace is preventing Photobucket ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/04/from_web_20_to_.html

I was in a board meeting last week, and as we reviewed the results one item quickly jumped off the page – the company did a great job signing up a couple of Tier 1 partners but a less than stel...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/04/why_startups_ne-2.html

The day after Microsoft’s TellMe aquisition, I was at Microsoft’s eighth annual VC Summit.  Unfortunately, I missed Steve Ballmer’s opening discussion, which in my opinion, is always one o...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/03/microsoft_vc_su.html

It has been stated that there is a fine line between genius and insanity but who’s to tell where one ends and the other begins.  I can also say that there is a similarly fine line between dilu...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/02/the_fine_line_b.html

Vision statements matter.  Sometimes we get too focused on the daily bump and grind, the next product release, and forget about the big picture and what we are trying to accomplish (see an earli...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/01/mission_stateme.html

We all know that there is something different this time about the web startup market.  As I have written before, it costs next to nothing to get a service on the web (look at MyBlogLog as an exa...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/01/bring_out_yer_d.html

A couple weeks ago I sat down with a new CEO of one of our portfolio companies, and we discussed goals for 2007 and what I and the board expected of him.  Yes, there was your usual conversation ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/01/communicating_w.html

There are many things that I am thankful for this year, but one of the best things that could happen to the New York tech scene is the growth of Google.  Last year Google opened a huge office in...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/12/bringing_the_va.html

A friend of mine called me the other day to ask for advice on what services (email, voice, apps) he should use to run his business with the caveat being that he wanted to spend as little upfront ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/12/small_business_.html

It is near the end of the year and I would hope by now that most companies have been through a revision or two of their strategic plan and budget for 2007.  While strategic planning and budgetin...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/12/planning_for_ne.html

James Surowiecki has a great article in the New Yorker this week about the new Nintendo Wii system, titled "In Praise of Third Place."  What James really asks is if you are a distant third in a ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/11/nintendo_wii_ra.html

There is a great BusinessWeek article outlining Amazon’s ambition to be a utility for web businesses.  This reminds me of a conversation I had last month with a founder and former CTO of one o...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/11/utility_computi.html

In an earlier post titled "When Competitors are acquired" I discussed that rather than sulk and wish it were you who was bought, smart companies will go out and capitalize on the opportunity as t...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/11/when_competitor.html

I had 2 board meetings last week, and it seemed that we spent a fair amount of time digging into each company’s sales process, understanding and mapping out each phase of the sales cycle from s...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/10/where_are_your_.html

On the heels of my earlier post on questions "entrepreneurs should ask themselves," I got a flurry of emails from readers about other points that I did not address.  Anyway, I strongly believe t...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/10/back_to_the_bas.html

Andy Sacks, CEO, of Judy’s Book has an excellent post of what simple questions management can ask themselves to assess their current state of play.  If you are an entrepreneur, I encourage rea...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/10/questions_to_as.html

I must admit that I have seen way too many social networking related plays that want to be the next MySpace of some niche market.  When asked about monetization the standard answer is they have ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/10/social_shopping.html

I was riding on the train this morning and was talking to a friend about one of my fund’s portfolio companies.  She mentioned that the management team had done a great job during a recent sale...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/10/i_was_riding_on.html

Congratulations to George Cigale and his Tutor.com (full disclosure – portfolio company and my partner Dan DeWolf is on the board) team for the launch of their direct-to consumer service which ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/live_homework_h.html

I encourage you to read what Evan Williams has to say (courtesy of Gigaom) about some of the mistakes he made at Odeo.  Evan is one of the founders of Blogger which he sold to Google and is also...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/getting_too_big.html

Nisan Gabbay of Sierra Ventures recently contacted me with respect to his new blog, Startup Review.  According to Nisan: Startup Review will be a blog that profiles successful Internet start-ups...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/add_startup_rev.html

As an entrepreneur, you are most likely spending most of your time building your product and getting it to market.  in other words, you are focusing on the big picture which is what you should b...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/the_importance_.html

While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, the Facebook story caught my eye.  Facebook has clearly built a huge community and is one of the leading social networks on the web.  However...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/facebook_and_pr.html

As you know, talent is the lifeblood of any company.  Given that, I have written a number of posts on hiring (see here and here).  I recently saw Joel Sposky’s (Joel on Software) post on hiri...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/hiring_great_ta.html

Oftentimes I am asked what my plan for exit is when I invest in a company.  Sure I have a plan when I invest, but it is impossible to predict the future.  The best plan in my mind is to make su...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/08/building_a_real.html

Attraction to fame is part of our culture.  There are dozens of magazines, tv shows, and websites devoted too all things celebrity.  This attraction to fame also extends to the business and tec...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/08/the_myth_of_the.html

Fred Wilson has a great post on remembering the old wounds from the last bubble in 2000.  In particular, he highlights the question that many of us have asked at board meetings – are we being ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/07/reliving_the_bu.html

It is always helpful to get benchmark data on your competitors and on other companies that have a similar business model.  To that end, I encourage you to sign up for the SIIA Financial Survey t...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/07/software_inform.html

As I mention in an earlier post, companies evolve and need different types of management with different profiles as they grow.  A clear kiss of death that I have seen more often than not is hiri...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/07/when_to_hire_a_.html

I met with a 10 person company the other day and once I got to Slide 2, I immediately started having questions about the opportunity.  What struck me was a company that had a CEO, COO, and a VP ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/06/topheavy_teams.html

When you first release your product to the market, it is extremely important to think long and hard about product pricing. I can’t tell you how many meetings I have had where I have thought tha...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/06/product_pricing.html

Congratulations to Greenplum (full disclosure: portfolio company) as it announced its first referenceable customer, Frontier Airlines, last week.  To refresh your memory, Greenplum develops soft...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/06/greenplums_firs.html

I recently sat in a presentation which a portfolio company CEO gave for a potential strategic partner.  He first started out with a two minute explanation of the business and then insisted on di...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/06/that_vision_thi.html

I just got back from a week in Israel having spent some time in Jerusalem for an Answers board meeting and then making my way to the Ohalo Resort on the Sea of Galilee for Kinnernet 2006.  Kinne...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/04/kinnernet_2006.html

There is an article in the Wall Street Journal (sorry-requires subscription) today on pre-emptive financings or financings that happen when a company is not actually looking for capital.  It is ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/03/preemptive_fina.html

I can’t tell you how many companies come in and present and inevitably, somewhere in the deck, is a list of advisors.  Of course, as I dig in to understand what these advisors actually do for ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/03/advisory_boards.html

Trust me, I love having well capitalized companies.  However, having too much money can be a curse, not a blessing.  More often than not, I see management lose financial discipline and avoid ma...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/03/money_does_not_.html

Scott Maxwell has another excellent post on his blog.  This time it is on a company’s need to measure and monitor their business.  In an early stage business, I typically see two types of com...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/02/wheres_your_das.html

The buzz around offshoring has certainly died down over the last year.  For a period of time, you could not pick up a magazine or read a newspaper without a lead article on the dangers of offsho...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/01/successful_offs.html

Today is Wayne Gretzky’s birthday, the greatest hockey player of all time.  Anyway, as I was looking at Today’s Highlights from Answers.com, I was reminded of a couple of my favorite quotes ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/01/favorite_quotes.html

I remember when I first got into this business over 10 years ago and one of my partners told me that the secret to success is about the people, not about the technology.  All too often we are en...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/01/gearing_up_for_.html

One of our advisors for our fund hosted a New York CIO dinner last night.  It was a gathering of 30-40 of some of New York’s leading technology buyers, mostly from the financial services indus...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/12/thoughts_from_a.html

I would even apply this frictionless sales model to the consumer web.  We all know that the Internet is turning every media company upside down about worries of cannabalizing their existing busi...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/12/frictionless_sa_1.html

As you know, I am enamored by frictionless sales.  Frictionless sales means reducing the pain for customers to adopt and use a service/product and consequently reducing the cost of sales and mar...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/12/frictionless_sa.html

I had a meeting last week where an entrepreneur insisted on showing me a demo first.  He was scrambling around asking for wireless keys and looking for ethernet jacks, while I sat there and trie...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/11/tips_for_the_fi.html

As an early stage VC, I spend a fair amount of time helping entrepreneurs build their management teams.  I have written about what we look for (read the A-Player Domino Effect), the hiring proce...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/11/the_importance_-2.html

I was in a board meeting yesterday reviewing the sales pipeline for a portfolio company walking through the wins and losses.  As I wrote in an earlier post, it is extremely important (to the ext...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/11/spinning_your_w.html

I admire entrepreneurs for the risk they take and the unerring confidence they have in their product and market opportunity.  However, what separates some of the great entrepreneurs from the ave...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/11/your_baby_is_ug.html

A number of our portfolio companies have been fielding calls from strategic buyers expressing an interest in acquisition.  This is great news since many of the better acquisitions come when com...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/10/fishing_expedit.html

I had an enjoyable lunch with Jeff Jarvis today catching up on a number of things and brainstorming about value in the next generation web.  During the conversation I vented a little frustration...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/10/web_20_bubble.html

I have to admit that hiring excellent sales people is not an easy task.  Any sales person worth his weight can pitch with the best of them, articulate a strong value proposition, and demonstrate...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/10/order_takers_ve.html

What is clear to me is that companies that get it use the Internet in a big way as a sales and marketing channel and even a delivery mechanism for their products.  Companies that don’t miss a ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/09/skype_and_siebe.html

I was in a board meeting last week reviewing a product release schedule for the next year.  I was extremely concerned that we missed the last release, and as we dug in deeper what we saw were a ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/09/engineering_red.html

I have received many an interesting resume through this blog.  Given that, I thought I would let you know of some job opportunities at Gurunet, creators of Answers.com.  The company recently op...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/07/jobs_at_gurunet.html

I recently helped negotiate an employment contract for a new hire at a portfolio company.  It was clear from the very beginning that this new VP of Marketing was the right fit for the company an...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/05/nickels_and_dim.html

I was speaking with a friend yesterday who recently signed a term sheet to raise a Series B round.  While he did not hit it out of the park with the valuation, it was a nice step-up none-the-les...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/05/fundraising_is_.html

I can’t tell you how many early stage companies I talk to tout their great list of partners.  I always step back in amazement at how a small company can support more than one, really large par...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/04/working_with_pa.html

I was talking to a portfolio company CEO today about his sales pipeline and one of the key items of interest for me was understanding competitive dynamics.  Besides looking at the raw numbers, I...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/03/competing_with_.html

It is clear that we are moving towards a consolidation phase in the technology sector.  M&A activity has been heating up over the last 18 months as strategic acquirers are looking to bulk up and...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/03/when_competitor-2.html

I have said many times before that with respect to doing deals that saying No is as important as saying Yes.  Let me elaborate.  A portfolio company has recently been in trials with a potential...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/03/i_have_said_man.html

Professor Noam Wasserman of HBS along with individuals from J. Robert Scott, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and Ernst & Young LLP put together an annual compensation report for ventur...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/02/hbs_compensatio.html

I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday about doing business development deals, and he was quite frustrated by the process that he was experiencing with one potential partner.  He was call...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/02/who_owns_the_re.html

On Thursday, I had the opportunity today to speak on a panel at the SAEC Global Venture Congress.  Other panelists included the moderator, Scott Maxwell from Insight Venture Partners, Bob Gold o...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/01/enterprise_smb_.html

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to spend time with the CTO of a major financial services company with a $1 billion IT budget.  In these meetings I like to learn about the major priorities and w...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/01/you_only_have_o.html

As I prepare for my trip to Israel this weekend for a board meeting, one piece of equipment I am sure to bring is my Plantronics DSP 400 headset so I can Skype with the CEOs in my portfolio compa...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/12/skype_rocks.html

I was recently advising a friend of mine who wanted to expand his team and hire some senior executives, and it occured to me that others could benefit from some of my thoughts on recruiting.  As...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/12/ones_mans_appro.html

In the past, I have written about a number of first generation NYC entrepreneurs coming out of the woodwork to launch new ideas.  Sure, the market may not be great right now but in my opinion it...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/12/nyc_20_continue.html

Early stage companies have to be nimble and disciplined when creating and releasing product.  One of the important decisions a startup can make is how it chooses to manage its product releases.�...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/11/the_train_is_le.html

It has been awhile since my last post as I have been busy with a number of board meetings.  It is so hard to find time.  Anyway, one thought I wanted to share with you is a discussion we had in...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/11/the_difference_.html

I was speaking with a friend of mine today who mentioned that his term sheet for his Series A round fell through. Things looked great for the last 6 weeks and then the deal process went into a st...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/10/strike_while_th.html

Jeff Nolan has a comprehensive post on choosing your VC. I totally agree with Jeff’s view that not only should entrepreneurs do their diligence when choosing a VC to invest in their company, bu...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/09/thoughts_on_pic.html

Board meetings can be a gigantic waste of time if not run appropriately. On the flipside, they can be a valuable source of input and guidance for a management team in the pursuit of maximizing sh...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/09/running_an_effi.html

Whether you know it or not, this seems to be the way that alot of early stage companies make strategic and tactical decisions. People run around the halls and manage by crisis, moving from one de...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/09/readyfireaim.html

I recently had a board meeting for one of my portfolio companies and was upset because during the sales pipeline review we only heard great things about the pipeline, new closed deals, and the po...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/08/post_mortem.html

One of the recurring themes of dealing with VCs and boards is that we do not like surprises. In addition, tell us the facts, and if there are any negative surprises give us action steps on how yo...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/08/we_dont_like_su.html

If you ever wondered what it takes for a startup to succeed, please read the email below sent from the CEO of one of our portfolio companies to his whole staff. Sure, startups don’t have the ca...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/07/how_startups_su.html

Everyone is talking about the slowdown of growth in the enterprise software sector as one of the main reasons driving consolidation talks at companies like Oracle/Peoplesoft and Microsoft/SAP. We...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/07/everyone_is_tal.html

Like any active, early stage venture investor, I have spent a fair amount of time helping my portfolio companies build a management team. And like any venture investor, I wish I could boil hiring...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/06/the_aplayer_dom.html

I met with Dave Panos and Andrew Busey of Pluck yesterday to learn more about their product and their company. Rather than go into the software (which I really like btw, combination RSS reader, b...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/06/web_businesses_.html

Jerry Colonna has an insightful post on what it’s like to be a CEO of a venture-backed company. Having worked with Jerry on a board before, I find his advice quite practical and thoughtful. One...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/05/its_tough_being.html

It is on the newswire today-Cometa Networks, the wi-fi service provider backed by IBM, AT&T, and Intel, is shutting down. There is much analysis out there discussing the merits of the business an...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/05/dont_overhype_y.html

This month seems to be my month for CIO meetings. Part of a VC’s job besides helping management with strategy and hiring people is to help with customer introductions and strategic partnerships...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/05/this_month_seem.html

It has been awhile since my last post as I have been busy with board meetings. In addition, I met a number of interesting companies, a couple of which were service businesses in the process of tr...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/05/be_careful_of_c.html

There are a number of good posts about founder transition in light of the recent changes at Friendster and Plaxo. If you are an entrepreneur, I suggest reading Ross Mayfield’s words of wisdom o...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/04/founder_transit.html

I met with an entrepreneur this week who had a fantastic background and great technology. However, it was a technology in search of a problem to solve. Why? Because he could not readily answer so...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/04/what_aislewhat_.html

OK, so times have been tough in the IT market over the last couple of years. Luckily, it is starting to get better. For those of you who understand that selling IT software to enterprises is not ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/04/new_business_mo.html

Once again, I am not going to blog the panels at PC Forum, but you can find some good commentary on the conference via other bloggers from my post yesterday. Other good posts can be found from Da...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/03/pc_forum_2004tu.html

PC Forum is off to a great start this year with an interview with Eric Schmidt from Google and a panel with the CEOs of AOL, Yahoo, and Google. I do not plan on taking detailed notes so I suggest...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/03/blogging_from_p.html

As I have said a number of times, I am a big believer that companies should start looking at how to use new technology and standards like blogs, wikis, and RSS/Atom from a product perspective and...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/03/in_a_response_t.html

As you can see, I have been spending alot of time with my portfolio companies hiring in a number of functions to create growth. That is obviously a good sign. Hiring is such an important skill, t...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/03/hiring_talented.html

Forgive me for being obsessed with customers, but after all, without them, how can you have a business. Anyway, I was interviewing a VP of Engineering candidate for one of my portfolio companies,...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/03/building_your_b.html

The morning is off to a great start with a few home networking/digital media boxes for consumers. The battle for the home is in full swing between MSFT’s vision of the PC as the gateway to the ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/demo_day_2home.html

Day 1 is about over and after having sat through a number of interesting pitches, it is funny to hear the PR folks saying that many of the journalists are more interested in consumer/web-oriented...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/demo_day_1_reca.html

I am at Demo 2004, and it is great to feel the positive buzz in the room. There are lots of VCs and press in attendance, and it is clear that entrepreneurship is alive and kicking. In fact, it ne...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/demo_2004.html

While tapping the growth of the Chinese market sounds like a good idea, a fellow VC who just got back from a trip to Beijing and Shanghai says he completely understands why his companies are not ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/tapping_the_chi.html

Fred Wilson has a great post about building a “customer-obsessed company” as opposed to a “technology-obsessed company.” This is good advice and reminds me of a number of companies built ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/building_busine.html

Many of you have heard the analogy that the VC due diligence process is like dating and getting the investment is akin to being married. For all of you in relationships, you also understand that ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/vcs_dont_like_s.html

I was quite frustrated recently when one of my portfolio companies presented the board with a 2004 revenue forecast which was not based on reality. While I am not a sales expert or spreadsheet jo...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/01/sales_forecasti.html

Besides taking a brief time out to celebrate the Expertcity deal, I have spent a fair amount of time interviewing VP candidates for one of my portfolio companies. As with any smart executive who ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/12/besides_taking_.html

Om Malik (ex-senior writer for Red Herring) has been writing about the commoditization of hardware. In a recent article in Business 2.0 titled “The Rise of the Instant Company,” Om talks abou...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/12/om_malik_exseni.html

Jeff Nolan from SAP Ventures has some interesting insights on building sales teams. One other I would add is pay commissions when you get paid.

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/12/jeff_nolan_from.html

Yesterday I participated on a panel at the Mid Atlantic Venture Conference on the current venture capital market and how to raise capital. While this was a plain-vanilla panel about venture inves...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/11/yesterday_i_par.html

I had the opportunity to speak on a panel today at the Corporate Venture Capital Summit. There was an interesting crew of speakers representing corporate-related venture activities for companies ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/11/i_had_the_oppor.html

Like individuals, every company has its own DNA. Every company possesses a unique team with a unique culture, rhythm, and way of doing business. What many of us forgot during the last few years i...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/11/like_individual.html

Yesterday, I was in a meeting with an early stage company reviewing the product development plan with the management team. While the plan was well thought out and defined by process, there was on...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/10/yesterday_i_was.html

Having met with a number of NYC entrepreneurs recently, I am refreshed to see that many of them are utilizing offshore resources to develop their products. Yes, this is not a new phenomenon, but ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/10/having_met_with.html

I recently spoke with Richard Adams, founder of Referral Networks, which was later sold to Peopleclick. He has started a new venture, RipDigital, which does the dirty work of converting CD collec...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/10/i_recently_spok.html

I had breakfast with a friend the other day, and he was in the process of a bankruptcy filing for his startup. We started talking about why his wireless company had failed and one of the main rea...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/10/i_had_breakfast.html