Customer Reference Calls

When a VC conducts due diligence, he typically wants to conduct calls with current or future customers in order to understand the customers’ perspectives on your business. These calls are a critical part of the due diligence process, as VCs often won’t know your customers’…

Leverage The Existing Value Chain

A VC friend of mine recently described his investment considerations. He mentioned one idea that many VCs think about, but rarely mention: new companies should typically try to leverage the existing value chain.

VCs Are Unavailable On Monday

For most VC funds Monday is a quasi holy day. Most VCs do not schedule meetings or calls on Mondays in order to have a partners meeting where the team can have uninterrupted time to discuss deals and more generally manage the business. They do this because the other four days…

How Much Capital You Should Raise: Entrepreneur’s Perspective

Entrepreneurs often struggle with trying to figure out how much money they should raise. Unfortunately, there typically isn’t a scientific answer. However, there are a number of discernable incentives that influence…

Be Nice To Assistants

Some entrepreneurs are rude to Executive Assistants, treating them as second-class members of a VC team. While assistants aren’t directly involved in the investment decision making process, they do have important influence.

Format/ Widgets

I have reworked the website a bit and added a few widgets to the right side of the blog. Let me know if you think the format still needs improvement.

Here are the widgets that I added:

• Get Venture Posts: This widget allows folks to pull a feed of my…

Convertible Debt: Delaying Valuation

Convertible debt is a valuable tool, especially for very early stage startups. This financial arrangement enables an investor to invest money in your company without negotiating a valuation for your company. These contracts enable the debt to convert to equity when…

Regional Venture Communities

Welcome to your respective regional venture community.

These venture communities are LinkedIn group for entrepreneurs, startup teams, venture capitalists and venture service providers in each region.