A New VC Ready to Go! One of the interesting things about being in business for 13 years (as of last week!) at Return Path is that we have been around longer than two of our Venture Capital funds. Fortunately for us, Fred led an investment in the company with his new fund, Union Square Ventures, even though his initial investment was via his first fund, Flatiron Partners. And even though Brad hasn’t invested out of his new fund, Foundry Group, he remains a really active member of our group as a Board Advisory through his Mobius Venture Capital investment. Although our third and largest VC shareholder, Sutter Hill Ventures, is very much still in business, our Board member Greg…
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Venture Capital
Picking Professional Services Firms
Picking Professional Services Firms One of the most important things you can do as an entrepreneur is to surround yourself with a great lawyer (as I mentioned in my posting on negotiating term sheets) and a great accountant. Brad’s advice here is excellent: Choose professionals carefully: It may be tempting to use your wife’s brother’s friend’s neighbor as your lawyer, because he will give you a great rate and you see him at the neighborhood barbecue, but you get what you pay for. The same is true for accountants and other services that your business will use. Find professionals who know what they are doing and have experience with young companies. I echo that and would add to it a…
Must-Read New Blog
Must-Read New Blog I’ve talked about Why I Love My Board a few times in the past. I was reminded at my quarterly Board meeting and dinner this week that it’s a great and unusually strong group, and we’re lucky to have them. Fred and Brad have both been prolific bloggers for years,and I know many of you follow their blogs closely. Think of that as getting a taste of the input and wisdom you’d get by having them on your Board. In a very exciting development, one of my independent directors, Scott Weiss, has now started blogging on the Andreessen-Horowitz platform. Scott is probably our most outspoken and colorful director (and that’s saying something). Scott just joined Andreessen-Horowitz as…
Why I Love My Board, Part III
Why I Love My Board, Part III My prophesy is starting to come true. In Part I of this series four years ago, I asserted that Fred may be the only one of my directors who has done something this dorky, this publicly, but quite frankly, I could see any of us in the same position. Now, Brad Feld is no shrinking violet. As far as I’m concerned, he made his film debut in the memorable “Munch on Your Bones” video (short, worth a watch if you’re a Feld groupie) something like 6 or 7 years ago for an all-hands meeting I ran. But his newest short feature film, “I’m a VC,” made with his three partners, Jason, Ryan, and…
Book Short: I Wish This Existed 12 Years Ago
Book Short: I Wish This Existed 12 Years Ago Brad Feld has been on my board for over a decade now, and when he and his partner Jason Mendelson told me about a new book they were writing a bunch of months ago called Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, I took note. I thought, “Hmmm. I’d like to be smarter than my lawyer or venture capitalist.” Then I read an advanced copy. I loved it. At first, I thought, I would really have benefited from this when I started Return Path way back when. Then as I finished reading it, I realized it’s just a great reference book even now, all these years and financings…
Should You Have a Board?
Should You Have a Board? As I mentioned last week, Fred’s post from a few months ago about an M&A Case study involving WhatCounts had a couple of provocative thoughts in it from CEO David Geller. The second one I wanted to address is whether or not you should have take on institutional investors and have a Board. As David said in the post: Fewer outsiders dictating (or strongly suggesting) direction means that you will be able to pursue your goals more closely and with less friction Although I have a lot of respect for David, I disagree with the notion that outsiders around the Board table is inherently bad for a business, or at least that the friction from…
Size of Pie, a.k.a. What Type of Entrepreneur Are You?
Size of Pie, a.k.a. What Type of Entrepreneur Are You? Mmmm…pie. A post that Fred had up a few weeks ago about an M&A Case study involving WhatCounts, a company in the email space that I’ve known and had a lot of respect for for years, got me thinking about two different topics. The first is thinking about types of entrepreneurs. I’ve always said there were two types: serial entrepreneurs who are great at starting companies but less great at scaling them, and entrepreneurs who are often part of a group of founders but who go on to continue to run the business for the long-haul. CEO David Geller’s quote that gets to the heart of this in Fred’s post…
Style, or Substance?
Style, or Substance? I had an interesting conversation the other day with a friend who sits on a couple of Boards, as do I (besides Return Path’s). We ended up in a conversation about some challenges one of his Boards is having with their CEO, and the question to some extent boiled down to this: a Board is responsible for hiring/firing the CEO and for being the guardians of shareholder value, but what does a Board do when it doesn’t like the CEO’s style? There are lots of different kinds of CEOs and corporate cultures. Some are command-and-control, others are more open, flat, and transparent. I like to think I and Return Path are the latter, and of course my…
A Perfect Ten
A Perfect Ten Return Path turns 10 years old today. We are in the midst of a fun week of internal celebrations, combined with our holiday parties in each office as well as year-end all-hands meetings. I thought I would share some of my reflections on being 10 in the blog as I’ve shared them with our team. What being 10 means to me – and what’s enabled us to make it this long: It means we’ve beaten the odds. Two major global economic meltdowns. The fact that 90% of new small businesses fail before they get to this point. Probably a higher percentage of venture backed startups fail before they get to 10 as well We’ve gotten here because…
Ten Characteristics of Great Investors
Ten Characteristics of Great Investors Fred had a great post today called Ten Characteristics of Great Companies. This link includes the comments, which numbered over 70 when I last looked. Great discussion overall, especially for Fred’s having come up with the list on a 15-minute subway ride. Fred used to write a series of posts about VC Chiches, and I would periodically write a Counter-Chiche post from the entrepreneur’s perspective. This post inspired me to do the same. So I’ve taken 15 minutes here, pretended I’m on the subway, and here is my list of Ten Characteristics of Great Investors, in no particular order: Great investors know how to give strategic advice without being in the operating weeds of a…
Poking a little fun at VCs
Poking a little fun at VCs Fred posted a great slideshow this morning of “things VCs will never say.” I can’t tell if the show is meant to be serious or not — some of the things would be great to hear from VCs, some would be terrible — though Fred’s comment at the bottom leads me to believe he thinks it was serious. At any rate, it reminded me of the brilliant and hilarious “VC Calendar Calisthenics” post of Dave Hornick from 5-6 years ago, which you can see here. Even if you’ve read it before, it’s worth a refresher.