1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures 2021 (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Would you invest in concepts?

Tim Guleri: Yes, we do and we have. The bar for the experience of the team in that particular pain point that they are going after is extremely high for those investment bets. You are betting on the future based on the experiences that they might have had, so that is why the bar is high.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Laurel Touby, Managing Director at Supernode Ventures 2021 (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: When I look back to when I started in the technology industry, it was the mid-90’s which was the beginning of the internet. There was still stuff like dial-up internet. Today, a lot of founders have not experienced a non-internet life. These are young people who are digital natives and many of them have not experienced adult life without a smartphone. It is a different demographic.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures 2021 (Part 1)

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 check it out!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s welcome Tim Guleri from Sierra Ventures. I have known him for a very long time. I am a big fan of Sierra Ventures and all the work that the firm does. I have a personal story with Sierra Ventures which I will tell you about in a moment. Thank you for coming.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Laurel Touby, Managing Director at Supernode Ventures 2021 (Part 1)

Laurel Touby, Managing Director of Supernode Ventures, talks about pre-seed investing in Latin America.

Sramana Mitra: How has COVID been? How have you been? How has the business environment for you been?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Frankel, Partner at ff Venture Capital 2021 (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What check sizes are you writing in the seed stage?

John Frankel: Our check sizes are from $300,000 to $700,000 for 10% of the company. 

Sramana Mitra: What are the secrets of your higher hit rate? What are some of the nuggets that you have learned? What are the best practices? 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rajeev Madhavan, Founder and General Partner at Clear Ventures 2021 (Part 6)

Rajeev Madhavan: If you look at that space, Andy Bechtolsheim was a big investor. He would invest his money to help get rid of the issues that he sees in that space. That applies even today, except that now you have a lot of investors in Silicon Valley, so your ability to get that small level of funding is much higher. It may not be VCs like us. We may occasionally do that because we want to build entrepreneurs in general.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Frankel, Partner at ff Venture Capital 2021 (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The deal size at which you had to meet in person has vastly changed. You can do large deals and raise investments without meeting in person. That is a massive shift and a massive removal of friction in scalability, fluidity, and velocity in any company’s growth trajectory. 

John Frankel: Totally. It is amazing that you can do that. I do hope that in a few months, meeting in person is something that we feel very comfortable doing. You are right. There has been a huge proof point around working remotely and getting things done efficiently.

Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing Unicorn Investments with Ravi Mohan of Shasta Ventures

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 Ravi Mohan.

Ravi Mohan is Managing Director at Shasta Ventures, a firm that has invested in three SaaS Unicorns. Ravi discusses these investments: Apptio, Anaplan, and Zuora. You can listen to the podcast interview here and the entire roundtable program here:

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