Raising money to build a startup is a huge challenge. To be able to raise any money at all, you must first understand how investors think. We have developed the following courses catering to entrepreneurs in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey.
>>>Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Director at Illuminate Ventures, discusses the impact of Covid on the fund’s portfolio, as well as trends she sees.
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Tim Guleri is Managing Director at Sierra Ventures. We have a terrific discussion on Business Model Innovation and Distribution Innovation that Tim believes trumps technology innovation. We go through some excellent examples. Do give this a listen!
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If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Daniel Cohen, General partner at Viola Ventures, discusses AI, PaaS, and deep tech investments.
Sramana Mitra: We have known each other for ten years. We have observed the industry for a very long time. We often have guests with whom we’ve had long relationships.
>>>In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:
During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Director at Illuminate Ventures. Cindy discussed the impact of Covid on the fund’s portfolio, as well as trends she sees.
ArtandFound.co
As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had Aditya Mehta from Mumbia, India, pitch Art&Found, a digital art marketplace based on NFTs.
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Heidi Roizen, Partner at Threshold Ventures, discusses her important article, “How to Build a Unicorn From Scratch – and Walk Away with Nothing,” and imparts crucial lessons to entrepreneurs on how to look at terms in a venture financing situation.
Sramana Mitra: We have been living in world of unicorn mania. We have tried to put some perspective on this issue. There are good sides to the unicorn mania. There are bad sides to the unicorn mania. Let’s start with one particular piece that you wrote, which I thought was very well-analyzed. The piece was titled How to Build a Unicorn From Scratch – and Walk Away with Nothing.
Heidi Roizen: I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve seen cycles come and go. There are two things every entrepreneur should be aware of that they really aren’t aware of. One is, not everything goes well all the time. If you’re an entrepreneur, you fully believe that everything is going to go great for you. The reality is, that is almost never the case. The second thing is, our economy moves in cycles. The macroeconomic conditions will affect your ability to raise money and prosper.
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Ken Elefant, Partner and Co-founder at Sorenson Ventures, talks about trends and his investment thesis.
Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about your funds. I know you have been working with your fund one and you are in the middle of raising your fund two. Fund one was about $100 million, right?
>>>In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:
During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures. We had a terrific discussion on Business Model Innovation and Distribution Innovation that Tim believes trumps technology innovation. We went through some excellent examples. Do give this a listen!
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Sasha Mirchandani is Founder and Managing Director of Kae Capital, an early stage fund focused on India. I’ve known Sasha for over a decade, and we discuss the evolution of the Indian startup industry at length. You can listen to the podcast interview here and the roundtable recording here:
In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:
If you have been bootstrapping and think you are ready for investors, you need to learn how investors think. First, please study our free Bootstrapping course and Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Bruce Cleveland.
Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, is one of the early employees at Oracle, as well as a co-founder of Siebel Systems. His book, The Traction Gap, shares the framework that his firm uses in its venture capital practice. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here and watch the roundtable video below:
During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Laurel Touby, Managing Director of Supernode Ventures, who spoke about pre-seed investing in Latin America.
EBuzzSpace.com
As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had George Kajaia from Tbilisi, Georgia, pitch EBuzzSpace.com. a very large, nebulous concept that he is trying to raise money for, but I think is unfundable.
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
If you have been bootstrapping and think you are ready for investors, you need to learn how investors think. First, please study our free Bootstrapping course and Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Hemant Mohapatra.
Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, India, talks about some of the large, open opportunities in the Indian market that are of interest to him. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here and watch the roundtable video below:
John Frankel is Partner at ff Venture Capital. We had an extensive discussion about Covid’s impact on the startup ecosystem, the changes we notice, so forth.
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