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.

Education & Technology: Now Is the Time – HotChalk CEO Edward Fields (Part 1)

Technology has long been a tool in the classroom but hasn’t always been the most effective one. Edward Fields, founder & CEO of HotChalk, an online learning resource for pre K-12 teachers, is looking to change that. >>>

Featured Videos

Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 1)

SM: Jeff, let’s start with your personal background. JH: I grew up in Brooklyn NY, lived in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Washington D.C. and now out here in San Francisco.

SM: Why so many locations? JH: Mostly in New York and New Jersey as a child. I was a strategy consultant and my wife worked at Bain as well, so we switched cities frequently. Then the Internet boom started and I graduated Harvard Business School. I went into strategy consulting in the entertainment and media space. I co-founded the media strategy practice at Accenture. >>>

Lars Dalgaard and his Success Factors (Part 1)

If you think you need to have Silicon Valley DNA to become a successful technology entrepreneur, Lars Dalgaard proves that it ain’t so. Lars is the CEO of SuccessFactors (Nasdaq: SFSF), a SaaS company which recently went public.

SM: Lars, I want to start with your personal background – tell me who you are. LD: You don’t have that much time! I was born in Denmark – I have a Danish passport. I lived in Denmark until I was 18, with a brief break when I lived in England from 13 to 16. >>>

Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 1)

Most Venture Capitalists that entrepreneurs work with these days have never been entrepreneurs themselves. They have not had to take substantial personal risks. They are used to cushy lifestyles, fat paychecks, and existing brands that their firms have built long before they came on board. >>>

Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche (Part 1)

I covered Stardoll in the Deal Radar series. Here’s the story from CEO Mattias Miksche.

SM: Please describe your personal background : Family, upbringing, early career, etc. leading up to this venture.

MM: I have a multicultural background. Austrian dad, German mom – they came to Sweden during/following World War II. I was born & raised in Sweden, grew up speaking German at home, Swedish at the playground. I also spent a year as a high school exchange student in Halstead, Kansas (population 1,017), which was a huge culture shock but a great life experience. I am still very close with my ‘American’ extra family. >>>

Building an Ambitious SaaS Company: Taleo CEO Michael Gregoire (Part 1)

In our Enterprise 3.0 coverage, I bring you, next, a conversation with Michael Gregoire, CEO of Taleo (Nasdaq: TLEO). Taleo had 2007 sales of $128 Million, and a market cap of close to $500 Million. In this case-study, we will do a deep-dive into the company’s business with Michael. >>>

Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 1)

In the world of entrepreneurship, a universally accepted doctrine is doing more with less. In this case study series, I bring you an entrepreneur who has done exactly that. Cree Lawson, founder and CEO of Travel Ad Network (TAN), is our guest this time, and will share his story with all its blood, sweat and tears. Cree’s venture also aligns with the Vertical Ad Network trend that we have been discussing here.

SM: Cree, please tell us about your personal background.

CL: I guess I’m the product of suburban America circa 1980—a time when there really wasn’t anything more to life than contact sports, loud music and the knowledge that the Russians really were coming at any moment. At least that’s all I knew. When I wasn’t dreaming, reading or knocking the crap out of my friends on a field behind the school, you’d find me cleaning floors at cookie stores and pet shops to buy parts for my exceptionally loud car stereo. Yeah—I was that guy. At one point my stereo was worth more than my car, in fact. But the car was only worth $1,000 so that wasn’t hard to beat. >>>

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 1)

I did this interview in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during my recent trip consulting with Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest online marketplace. I found the story fascinating, and wanted to capture it for my readers all over the world.

SM: I would like to hear the story of how you built Mercado Libre. Let’s start with your background; where did you grow up?

MG: I grew up here in Buenos Aires. When I was 17, I went to college in the US. I studied at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania from 1990 to 1994. When I graduated I came back and worked for an oil company which was the largest oil company in Argentina. It actually has just been privatized through an IPO on the NYSE. I did finance there for three and a half years. Afterwards I went to do an MBA at Stanford. When I came back I started Mercado Libre.

>>>

Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 1)

SM: Jeff, let’s start with your background. Where do you come from, where did you go to school, and how did you get into technology? I know that you went to MIT, and I have to say that it is a pretty good school!

JK: Of course! We always referred to Harvard as the best school at Harvard Square when I was there. I grew up in Napa. My parents still live there, and my wife’s parents still live there. It was a small town upbringing. I studied engineering for my undergrad at the University of California.

I got involved in technology because I was interested in computer aided design. In the early 70’s you had to write most of your own software. You could not buy a CAD package, and everything you did was from scratch. I got very involved with graphics. >>>

Pioneering Video Conferencing: Polycom CEO Bob Hagerty (Part 1)

SM: Let’s start the conversation with your story? Where did you grow up, where do you come from?

BH: I grew up in New Rochelle New York, which is right outside of New York City. I went to grammar school there and then went off to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for my BA degree. I was in the engineering school there and I spent most of my time in Operations Research which is like math, but not necessarily pure engineering. At the time computers were starting to get more popular, moving out of the white room with raised floors and more into industry. Right before graduation I went to work for Digital Equipment Corporation. The area I was assigned to was peripherals; terminals, printers, and tape readers; they were paper tape readers back then. We had just moved away from card readers. We also had just started with floppy disks.
>>>