BeyondVC
boldstart ventures in 2014 – our ethos | Mark As Read |
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 known as seed investors with a focus on enterprise and companies that can scale quickly. To date our messaging has been clear, […]
Branding first starts with your team | Mark As Read |
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 representation of your company comes from your employees. Make sure you have a succinct, crisp and clear 2-3 sentence pitch on what you do and that everyone...
Camping out and closing deals | Mark As Read |
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 succinctly, tell the world about it in a capital efficient manner, and sell the damn thing, you are SOL
Cutco Knives and startups | Mark As Read |
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 every sales call I had, I always tried to flog the deluxe set. Of course, more often than not, I left
Startups and Intellectual Property (IP) | Mark As Read |
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 for his panel today about IP and patents. Last week, we met with a company and when we asked about their core IP, they
What entrepreneurs can learn from Jeff Spicoli | Mark As Read |
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 asked by Mr. Hand, his teacher, why he keeps coming late and wasting his time, Spicoli answers, "I don't
Never give up but move on quickly | Mark As Read |
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 trait that I also admire in many of the entrepreneurs that I have funded over the years.
Startups getting caught in No Man's Land | Mark As Read |
"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 war. In "No Man's Land" lay a wasteland of dead bodies and other debris and shrapnel. Increasingly I am seeing many startups who were ably
The New York Startup Market Rocks and is REAL | Mark As Read |
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 awesome. Dave Tisch and team simply did a fantastic job guiding the startups, recruiting the mentors, and
Reflecting on passed investments | Mark As Read |
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 up passing on for whatever reason. Did we pass because we didn't think the team was great or because we didn't believe
Know When to Hold 'em, Know When to Fold 'em | Mark As Read |
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 capital. The product is nice but they took too long iterating and releasing a subsequent version while the
Put your users first! | Mark As Read |
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 the years, how many times have we seen companies grow from next to nothing in user base and somehow forget
2 horse race in mobile – iphone and android | Mark As Read |
I just caught this blog post from Seth Weintraub from Fortune on Android: Andy Rubin just Tweeted that Google (GOOG) is activating 300,000 phones a day. That passes Apple's (AAPL) iOS, that passes Blackberry (RIMM). That even matches any figures that Symbian has ever put up. Google is closing in on an astounding 10 million
Standard investor update for startups | Mark As Read |
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 could also help in various ways. His job was to keep everyone up-to-date but also to know
Don't build an empire overnight – lessons from FreshDirect and Webvan | Mark As Read |
The other day I received a direct mail piece from FreshDirect, the online delivery service based out of New York. What struck me is that the service has been around for years in NYC, and it is now getting out to some of the suburbs in New Jersey. In fact, after having done a little
Don't build an empire overnight - lessons from FreshDirect and Webvan | Mark As Read |
The other day I received a direct mail piece from FreshDirect, the online delivery service based out of New York. What struck me is that the service has been around for years in NYC, and it is now getting out...
Scaling your management style | Mark As Read |
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 preferred seed investment is in an...
The consumer Internet business is not easy | Mark As Read |
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 the drivers seat as having built a successful company. Unfortunately, this is where the need for
The consumer Internet business is not easy | Mark As Read |
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 the...
EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum – more behind the story | Mark As Read |
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 at the abyss only to come back stronger. This is a story of great people and incredible perseverance. The great
EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum - more behind the story | Mark As Read |
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 at the abyss only to...
4 Types of CEO Behavior when Dealing with Boards | Mark As Read |
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 information. One of the best...
The Ongoing Data Revolution | Mark As Read |
In early 2006, I wrote a post titled "The next generation web, scaling and data mining will matter." In it, I highlighted some thoughts on the future: I truly believe the next battleground will be based on scaling the back...
Is it a feature or product? | Mark As Read |
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 entrepreneur after entrepreneur is...
The Gartner Magic Quadrant - a necessary evil in IT | Mark As Read |
Lately, I feel as if I have been spending an inordinate amount of time with my companies talking about marketing. Related to this, one of my portfolio companies recently received a number of nice emails from the board related to...
Market positioning for startups - focus, focus, focus | Mark As Read |
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 was trying to boil the ocean and...
When to ramp sales | Mark As Read |
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 cautiously optimistic approach...
Google acquires portfolio company Gizmo5 | Mark As Read |
Congratulations to Michael Robertson and team at Gizmo5 for all of their hard work and perseverance! There is not a lot I can tell you about the future plans for Google Voice, but I do believe it is important to...
The Googlization of IT | Mark As Read |
Today I took a sales team from a portfolio company to meet with a couple of senior IT executives at a major retail company. Towards the end of the meeting, it started to become quite clear to me the effect...
Washers, dryers and secret sauce - why naming your technology is important | Mark As Read |
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. After all, isn?t a washer...
Future of television advertising (continued again!) | Mark As Read |
My first post about portfolio company Visible World and the future of television advertising was in October 2004 (see here). In the post, I wrote about how television advertising needed to change and how the advertisers and those with inventory...
Pioneers get arrows in their backs | Mark As Read |
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 can be deadly. Just like...
Inspirational video for entrepreneurs | Mark As Read |
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 numbers for entrepreneurs. Take a look and hopefully...
Occam's Razor and the current state of venture | Mark As Read |
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 the best...
I want it NOW, I want it REAL TIME | Mark As Read |
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 usage...
Lessons from Joost | Mark As Read |
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 curse...
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