The Startup Velocity Question: What Hinders Acceleration in VC Funded Companies?

I have been running 1Mby1M since 2010. I find myself saying to entrepreneurs ad nauseam that VCs want to invest in startups that can go from zero to $100 million in revenue in 5 to 7 years.

Startups that do not have what it takes to achieve velocity should not be venture funded.

Experienced VCs, over time, have developed heuristics to gauge what constitutes a high growth venture investment thesis. 

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Bootstrapping

Over the course of two years, we have released over 70 courses on Udemy with the aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally. This series of posts aims to help you find the one you need easily and provide you with discount coupons.

Long Road From Cuba: Manny Medina, CEO of Terremark (Part 1)

SM: Manny, let’s start by talking about yourself. Where do you come from?

MM: I was born in Cuba and left in 1965, when I was 13. My parents left the Castro regime. We came to Miami, and I grew up and went to school here. I went to a junior college here, which is where I got my first interest in business. >>>

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Making Serious Money From Casual Games: King.com CEO Riccardo Zacconi (Part 1)

Riccardo Zacconi is the CEO of King.com, a company that is pioneering casual gaming online. Prior to coming to King, he was EIR at Benchmark Capital and before that, managing director at Spray, a European portal company that was sold to Lycos in 2000. Before joining Spray, he was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group.

SM: Riccardo, where are you from, and what kind of environment did you grow up in?

RZ: I am Italian. I was born in Rome and studied economics. After I graduated I went to London briefly and then to Germany, where I worked as a consultant for eight years. >>>

Venture Capital in India: Ashish Gupta (Part 1)

Dr. Ashish Gupta is a co-founder of Helion and serves on the boards of Gridstone Research, Jivox, Kirusa, MuSigma, Naukri.com, and SMS Gupshup. He has co-founded Tavant Technologies and Junglee. His investments include Daksh (IBM), Odesk, Obongo (AOL), Speedera (Akamai), MakeMyTrip, Merittrac (Manipal Group), and Kaboodle (Hearst). Ashish is a Kauffman Fellow and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur, where he was awarded the President’s Gold Medal. He has written several patents, publications, and a book published by MIT Press.

SM: Ashish, to start could you give us a macro picture of what you have seen in the Indian venture market from 2005 to 2009?

AG: There are several things that are working. The number of people who are willing to be entrepreneurs and who have a very mature view of how to build companies as opposed to inexperienced entrepreneurs has increased. The entire ecosystem to support entrepreneurs has improved, although it is nothing like the Valley. >>>

Simulating The Brain: Baynote CEO Jack Jia (Part 1)

Jack Jia is a co-founder and CEO of Baynote. For eight years, he was SVP and CTO of Interwoven Inc. with executive responsibilities in engineering, products, marketing, strategy, and vision. Jack led operating systems and applications development at SGI, Sun Microsystems, Stratus, and NASA for over a decade. He is a board advisor for Santa Clara University and the president of HYSTA, a non-profit organization for promoting entrepreneurship.

SM: Jack, take us back to where your story begins. Where are you from?

JJ: I came from China when I was 24. I went to college in Beijing to the point of getting my master’s degree. >>>

Hollywood’s Content Crisis: Robert McKee (Part 1)

The Guardian has called Robert McKee the “most influential storytelling theorist since Aristotle.” As a screenwriting instructor, he has taught students as illustrious as John Lasseter of Pixar and Akiva Goldsman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “A Beautiful Mind”, “The Da Vinci Code” and other films. For over 15 years, his Story Seminar has been the ultimate writing class for over 50,000 screenwriters, filmmakers, TV writers, novelists, industry executives, actors, producers, directors, and playwrights.

I took this class in July. This interview was recorded in September. If you have any aspiration to write for film, I highly recommend the seminar. I invited Bob to discuss the business of film with me, and it helped me gain clarity on a number of issues.

SM: Box offices have seen a surge in movie tickets sales as it looks as though people are going to the movies more during the recession. At the same time, there is a story crisis in Hollywood films. We see a lot of the same stories repeatedly. Why is storytelling facing a crisis?

RM: I agree with you. From the Hollywood point of view there is no story problem. It is not in crisis. They are making a lot of money and they are happy to do that. >>>

Teaching 50,000 Students Online: APEI CEO Wally Boston (Part 1)

Wally is the CEO and president of American Public University System and its parent company American Public Education, Inc (APEI). He is also a member of the West Virginia Governor’s Advisory Council for Technology in Education. He is a CPA, CMA and Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. He earned a BA from Duke and an MBA from Tulane.

SM: Wally, take us back to where your story begins. Give us some personal background to set the stage for your career.

WB: I grew up on the eastern shore of Maryland, which is a very rural area. In seventh grade I had the good fortune to get an academic scholarship to a boarding school. >>>

A Public University’s Online Journey: Hunt Lambert of CSU (Part 1)

Hunt Lambert is the Associate Provost of Continuing Education at Colorado State University and CEO of CSU Global Campus. Hunt is the former director of the Colorado State University Entrepreneurship Center and a faculty member of the College of Business. During his businesses career he was part of 25 startups. He teaches strategy and business plan development in the school’s MBA program. He has helped another 15 startups since he joined CSU seven years ago, including Solix Biofuels, EnviroFit, Abound (AVA) Solar, Keen Foods and AML.

SM: Hunt, let’s start with your background before we get to the Colorado story.

HL: I was born with an entrepreneurial spirit and started doing things on my own at a very young age. I worked as a bartender in the Caribbean at age 13. In the summer I would buy old cars, fix them, and re-sell them. >>>

Buying and Selling Online Schools: The Unusual Career of Michael Clifford (Part 1)

SM: Take us back to your beginning to give us some context about who you are.

MC: I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. My father was a musician and started a radio station, so I grew up around a radio station and music. I never went to college and yet went on to be a catalyst for and founder of six universities. >>>

From Non-profit To IPO: The Turnaround Of Grand Canyon University: Brent Richardson (Part 1)

Brent Richardson is the executive chairman of the board for Grand Canyon University. He joined GCU in 2003 as the CEO and led the transformation of a near-bankrupt university into an IPO success story. Prior to GCU, he was the founder of multiple companies and CEO of Masters Online. In his early career, he gained a background in sales working for Prescription Learning, a company founded by his father.

SM: First, let’s cover your background before Grand Canyon University. Where do you come from and what kind of career path did you follow?

BR: I have been in the education space for over 20 years. In 1987, I started a company called Educational Management Group. We were doing distance education to K-12 schools through satellite at the time. >>>

Teaching K-12 Math Online: Reasoning Mind CEO Alex Khachatryan (Part 1)

SM: Let’s start with a bit of your history. Where do you come from?

AK: I am from the former Soviet Union. I was born and raised in Moscow and immigrated to the United States in 1990. have lived here ever since. >>>