1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Financing

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.

Roundtable Recap: February 22 – Understanding a Trust-Driven Investment Thesis

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Nate Redmond, Managing Partner at Alpha Edison, a VC firm that has put trust-driven ventures at the center of its investment thesis. It’s a very interesting conversation for both entrepreneurs and investors to listen to.

Momni
As for entrepreneur pitches, Karmel Larson from Orem, Utah, pitched Momni, a trust-based mobile app that faciliates the process of moms sharing the responsibility of child care. Excellent presentation and a promising company!

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Featured Videos

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Naren Gupta of Nexus Venture Partners (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. The following interview with Naren Gupts was recorded in October 2014. 

Naren Gupta, co-founder of Nexus Venture Partners – a firm with an excellent track record of investing in the Silicon Valley – India corridor, but with a global market point of view – shares his insights, nuggets, and interesting wisdom. He is a veteran investor who is also strikingly polite and humble.

Sramana Mitra: I want to tell you one story before we start the discussion and ask you questions. One of your 

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7 Seed Investor Podcasts Discuss What They Look For In Startups

There is currently a lot of capital in seed investing, with somewhere between 500 and 700 micro VCs extremely active in what we call the pre-Series A ecosystem. Some are really small funds of $10-$15 million dollar funds, some are $30-$50 million dollar funds, some are $70-$100 million dollar funds, and in some cases they do small Series A investing. This is quite a recent phenomena that has emerged over the past few years, perhaps even just within the past 18 months. Huge numbers of people have raised small funds. As a result, a lot of seed deals are getting funded. Recently, over the past month, I’ve spoken with the following group of seed investors about this trend, as well as the types of startups that seed investors are looking for. Have a listen to our conversations, shared below as 30-minute podcast interviews, to learn if seed investors might be interested in financing your startup.

Daniel Cohen, General Partner, Viola Ventures, discusses the Israeli startup market and his firm’s focus within that segment.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Scott Sandell of NEA (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Scott Sandell was recorded in February 2015.

Scott Sandell, General Partner at NEA, is one of NEA’s star investors. He has been named to the Forbes Midas list every year since 2007, and has been involved with eight Unicorn companies including Salesforce.com, Workday, Webex, Tableau, and others. Scott discusses, specifically, Webex and Tableau in quite a bit of depth. In both companies, the scrappy, capital-efficient management of those businesses were striking!

Among Silicon Valley’s venture firms, NEA holds a special place in my own entrepreneurial journey, being the first VC firm that I >>>

386th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Daniel Cohen, Viola Ventures

Daniel Cohen, General Partner, Viola Ventures, discusses the Israeli startup market and his firm’s focus within that segment.

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385th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Nitin Rai, Elevate Capital

Nitin Rai, Managing Director at Elevate Capital, made a compelling case for investing in niche businesses with the upfront goal of scoring early exits. Excellent discussion!

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Roundtable Recap: February 14 – GMV and Revenue Need Clear Distinction in Marketplaces

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Daniel Cohen, General Partner, Viola Ventures, who discussed the Israeli startup market and his firm’s focus within that segment.

Sagisu
As for entrepreneur pitches, 1Mby1M Premium member Mithun Kadur from Monroe, NJ, pitched Sagisu, a logistics and transportation marketplace company focused on Indian enterprises. Sagisu is already in revenue and is moving along very nicely. I am very bullish on the company.

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218th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Corey Schmid, Seven Peaks Ventures

Corey Schmid is General Partner at Seven Peaks Ventures, a firm with a focus on the Pacific Northwest.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Venktesh Shukla of TiE Angels (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Venktesh Shukla was recorded in September 2017.

Venktesh Shukla, founder of TiE Angels and General Partner Monta Vista Capital, discusses some shifts happening in the world of seed investing.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about TiE Angels and how you work with investors and entrepreneurs.

Venktesh Shukla: TiE Angels is a 7-year-old organization that is a collection of individual investors who, in general, tend to focus on B2B companies. The whole idea is that the collective wisdom of the group helps make better decisions, >>>

6 Seed Investors Present a Variety of Investing Viewpoints via Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum

Not all investors have the same point of view on how they make money off their investments in startups. Read the following investor interviews to understand the wide diversity of investment theses that exist amongst investors.

Yanev Suissa is General Partner at SineWave Ventures, out of Washington, DC, and Silicon Valley. The firm invests alongside some major firms like Andreessen Horowitz and NEA. Yanev talks about how they invest, and also the trends he sees.

Victoria Pettibone, Managing Director of Astia Angels, a group focused on funding women entrepreneurs. She discusses what they like to invest in, as well as the trends she sees in the deal flow and the portfolio.

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219th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Tim Wilson, Artiman Ventures

Tim Wilson, Partner at Artiman Ventures, has been in the venture business for a long time, and refreshingly has the skill and the confidence to do very complex technology deals that are relatively early.

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220th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Greg Borchardt, Caerus Ventures

Greg Borchardt is Co-founder and Managing Partner at Caerus Ventures, a firm that has a focus on connected hardware. It’s an interesting and differentiated investment thesis that is worth listening to, especially for IoT entrepreneurs.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With T.M. Ravi of The Hive (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with T.M. Ravi was recorded in September 2016.

T.M. Ravi is Managing Director and Co-founder of The Hive, a venture studio. The discussion touches upon a couple of key issues: the prevalent incubator/accelerator model of 3-month classes, we agreed, is bogus; and Future of Work: Utopia or Dystopia?

Sramana Mitra: To set context, please introduce Hive to our audience. What kinds of companies do you incubate? What is the thesis around which you’re building this program? >>>

Roundtable Recap: February 8 – Niche is Beautiful Says Veteran Seed Investor Nitin Rai

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Nitin Rai, Managing Director at Elevate Capital. Nitin made a compelling case for investing in niche businesses with the upfront goal of scoring early exits. Excellent discussion!

PM First
As for the entrepreneur pitch, Phillip Cornell from Washington, DC, pitched PM First, an extraordinarily creative idea of turning economy seats into luxury cabins in airlines. Quite fascinating!

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Shomit Ghose of Onset Ventures (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

We are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Shomit Ghose was recorded in December 2014.

Shomit Ghose, Partner at Onset Ventures, is also a veteran startup executive with multiple IPOs under his belt. He highlights the fact that 70,000 ventures received angel funding in 2014, but the number of companies receiving venture funding remains constant year over year at about 1,000 per year. Focusing on building value is of paramount importance, so that you can validate and prove your value proposition. >>>