This is a quick post that has been sitting in my draft folder too long. I watched Mike Maples‘ presentation about “Thunder Lizards” a little while back.  It was a good talk and hopefully I get to meet him in person soon.  Here’s […]

What do Admob, CafePress, Aardvark, Polyvore, and Xoopit have in common?  If you said that they were all backed by great VC’s like Sequoia, August, Benchmark, and Accel, you would be correct.  But did you know that they are also […]

VC’s often ask entrepreneurs of early stage companies questions that they can’t realistically answer.  For example: 1. What’s the cost of customer acquisition? (most entrepreneurs have no clue.  Plus, even with early data, this answer can change radically with scale) […]

When I joined the venture business, I was told that the job is a lot harder than it looks.  You need to find great companies to invest in, work hard to make them successful, and work even harder to try […]

I’ve often heard that there is a shortage of seed-stage investment capital in the Boston area, especially in the consumer realm.  Nabeel Hyatt, founder of Conduit Labs put it pretty succinctly: “This is in IMHO *the* biggest impediment to a […]

VC’s pass on new investment opportunities more than 99% of the time.  My guess is that the clear #1 reason why we pass is because of the team.  This could mean a bunch of different things (eg. no confidence the […]