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A ray of light in this environment?

Oct 15, 2008
in Entrepreneurship

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 toward an even bigger problem for startups, a potential recession.  The consumer no longer has that ATM called their house and confidence [...]

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Be prudent but don't panic!

Oct 9, 2008
in Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

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 burn.  This is not new news as being in New York we started to feel the real economic impact in mid-September as [...]

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Delivering on Q3 forecasts!

Oct 1, 2008
in Entrepreneurship

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.  Normally I expect our portfolio companies to hit their numbers, but I am ecstatic because we delivered in the midst of [...]

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Doing more with less

Sep 15, 2008
in Entrepreneurship

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 what had just happened to Lehman Brothers and the uncertainty of the financial markets and economy.  Given this state [...]

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M&A – it ain't over till it's over

Aug 22, 2008
in Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

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 interested in exiting today, M&A continues to be the only viable path along that front.  Having been through a [...]

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Your reputation matters – how to handle reference calls

Jun 5, 2008
in Entrepreneurship

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 entrepreneur, a VC will want to do some deep reference checks on you and also on any major customers or partners.  If you [...]

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Raising capital and meeting expectations

May 28, 2008
in Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

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 to start thinking about its next round well ahead of time and the milestones it needs to hit to [...]

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Developing your way to success or failure…

Apr 9, 2008
in Entrepreneurship

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 seemed to surface was a focus on the next product.  What I mean is that when discussing why our current product [...]

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Direct ad sales and startups

Mar 29, 2008
in Digital Media, Entrepreneurship

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 like many startups, a number of these companies have plans to add a direct ad sales staff over time.  That makes a ton [...]

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The economic headwinds are getting stonger

Mar 19, 2008
in Entrepreneurship

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 were built when the economy was at its worst.  And I always like to think that it [...]

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