992 Posts Found

The WSJ wrote a story on venture capital returns that claims “Andreessen Horowitz’s Returns Trail Venture-Capital Elite.” Andreessen Horowitz’s Scott Kupor offers a rebuttal by explaining how arcane and obtuse venture capital valuations can be.

Content: Article | Author: Scott Kupor | Source: Andreessen Horowitz | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

I like to say the role of the entrepreneur is to understand the difference between perception and reality. Perception is conventional wisdom, it’s what everybody thinks is right, or is the answer. And reality, sometimes it’s the same, but often it’s very different.

I like to say the distance between perception and reality is the innovator’s playground. But if you are going to play in that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Travis Kalanick | Source: Business Insider | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation

Autopsy is a collection of lessons from failed startups. Reading through some of them will probably be of value for any entrepreneur.

Content: Online Resource | Subject: Entrepreneurship

We often get emails from startups saying “we’re running out of money, so we’re going to raise a series A now.” As if it were like making a second trip to the ATM. And when we ask how they’re doing, the answer is usually a combination of slow growth and high expenses. We have to tell them they have no hope of raising a series … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jessica Livingston | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

A resilient culture has a certain amount of resistance embedded in it. Not too much to capsize it, but enough so that it doesn’t atrophy. What happens when startups get successful and grow is that they become more and more vulnerable to the attraction-selection-attrition cycle, where people of the same stripes are increasingly drawn to the organization, chosen by it and retained at it. The … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Grant | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Culture, Entrepreneurship, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

How to improve your fundraising with investor segmentation, storytelling and specific follow-up.

Content: Article | Author: Edith Yeung | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Entrepreneurs are always called crazy, until they start making money. Then they’re brilliant.

Content: Quotation | Author: Alex Charfen | Source: ChangeThis | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Content: Quotation | Author: Alex Charfen | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

Immigrants are 15 percent of the overall United States population, but they become entrepreneurs at a much higher rate, according to new research by William Kerr and Sari Pekkala Kerr.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Blanding | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Economics, Entrepreneurship

Sam Altman interviews Jessica Livingston, co-founder of Y Combinator. Topics include the history of Y Combinator itself and some interesting anecdotes about AirBNB.

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Jessica Livingston, Sam Altman | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Sounds like clickbait, right? A “listicle”, questionable facts loosely stitched together only to get you to visit. But what this really is is ten solid, if I say so myself, marketing tips based on almost a decade of technology marketing.

I wrote them down because each of them has proven valuable in conversations with people that are marketing startups in one way or another. Here they … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Andrus Purde | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Marketing / Sales

Each quarter we pull the Arthur Ventures team together for an all-day offsite where we go through every company we’ve funded in detail and rank them across a handful of categories to help inform where we want to deploy additional capital and better understand where we expect future returns to come from for our limited partners. Coming out of this last meeting I analyzed the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Patrick Meenan | Subject: Entrepreneurship

I asked [an experienced board member] “what exactly does a CEO do?” He answered without thinking:

“A CEO does only three things. Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.”

I asked, “Is that it?” He replied that the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Fred Wilson | Source: A VC | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Entrepreneurship, Management

I’ve heard thousands of investors ask tens of thousands of questions. I’ve also learned that startups’ answers to these questions can be far more insightful than a rehearsed pitch. This is a list of the most frequently asked investor questions.

Content: Article | Author: Elizabeth Kraus | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

I get a lot of people asking me about PR, and how to achieve coverage, especially around a launch or announcement.

At the end of the day, it’s not a big mystery. It’s a B2B sales campaign, where you have a qualified, relevant list of targets (media list), a means by which to reach them (email addresses), a coherent argument for why what you’re doing is … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Pete Kazanjy | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Public Relations

Pete Kazanjy discusses a recruiting strategy for bringing aboard energized, motivated salespeople who produced, including the mistakes he made and has seen other organizations make, and — most importantly — how to find and close the candidates that will make or break your ability to sell your product.

Content: Article | Author: Pete Kazanjy | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Human Resources, Marketing / Sales

Investors write checks when the idea they hear is compelling, when they are persuaded that the team of founders can realize its vision, and that the opportunity described is real and sufficiently large. When founders are ready to tell this story, they can raise money. And usually when you can raise money, you should.

Content: Quotation | Author: Geoff Ralston | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Most entrepreneurs hate gambling. What they really enjoy is the opportunity to try something new. They’re typically driven not by this craving for risk, but rather, this desire to say, “Can I pursue a passion? Can I work independently? Can I do something where I’m really going to have an impact?”

What mystifies a lot of us is we look at entrepreneurs, and we see them … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Grant | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Entrepreneurship

“Every chapter of Horowitz’s no-holds-barred book offers hard-won lessons for the CEOs of startups and rapid-growth tech companies. Unlike the pablum that many business book authors deliver, this entrepreneur and VC (Horowitz is a co-founder of Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz) refuses to sanitize the story: for instance, he admits that CEOs often don’t have great choices and, instead, must find the least-worst option to … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Ben Horowitz | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Management

After product market fit, nothing is more important to growth than hiring the right people. The right people grow your startup exponentially – the wrong ones stunt growth. To get that exponential growth, you need a recruiting strategy that provides a steady pipeline of people ready to jump aboard when you post your jobs. I’ve put together 19 tips to help you build a strategy … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Adam Seabrook | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Human Resources