Five really good blogs we read this month: a fascinating first-person account of the days leading up to Redfin's IPO, from non other than their CEO; venture fund FirstRound's 30 best pieces of advice to entrepreneurs (our personal favorite: #17: Demo your product with the young, the old, and the drunk); some remarkable data on the differences in economic growth between…
Read MoreStartup death is a fact of startup life; most of us don't need to hum Circle of Life to understand that it's not all unicorns, roses and IPOs at the end. Indeed, the startup obituary has almost become its own literary genre, with lots of founders baring their souls about the individual circumstances of their company's demise. One of the…
Read MoreIf there is an industry that thrives on upsetting unconventional wisdom, it's tech. Don't talk to strangers? How about hailing a ride -- or renting a room -- from someone you have never met. People will never buy things if they can't hold them first. That sort of stuff. So when someone pokes technology's conventional wisdom right smack in the middle…
Read MoreAn insightful and numbers-full piece in, of all places, Pensions and Investments, discusses the traffic jam developing in Venture Capital. As with any other backup, there is an excess at the beginning and less near than the end: as total capital invested continues to rise (more dollars but a smaller number of deals), however there are fewer exits, as market reluctance remains intact…
Read MoreWe've been lucky enough to have heard Gil Penchina opine a lot. Unfortunately, most of this was well before he became known for angel investing and his Angel List syndicate, and was usually about his failed romantic exploits. Whatever -- truth is we usually didn't listen anyway. But now we do, and gladly. Burnished to a brighter shine as one…
Read MoreLeadership transitions within private equity firms are icebergs: sometimes the tips are spotted in the distance, but the vast majority are usually out of sight and only significant in a catastrophe. Large crashes became well-known, but even then information is largely anecdotal -- stories passed around with cocktail glasses. Most leadership transitions float past, largely hidden from view. However a working paper from researchers at Harvard…
Read MoreLooking at venture capital investment during the first half of 2016, Redpoint's Tomasz Tunguz has a nice piece (and several graphs) on the flux in the fundraising market -- early stage deals (Series A) have nosedived by a whopping one-third, as have later stage financings, while expansion stage financings (Series B) are up substantially. This view is a little bit…
Read MoreOne of many interesting changes in venture capital in the past few years has been the emergence of mutual fund companies investing in very late rounds. In many ways this makes sense -- technology companies are delaying IPOs, and a late-stage investment gets a mutual fund pre-IPO equity at a slightly better price (they hope) and often with significant downside…
Read MoreWhen you're in a boom, it's always hard to see if a down quarter is a welcome correction or the beginning of a slump. For venture capital, Q3 could be either. Based on data from Pitchbook, the number of Q3 financing were down significantly: 22% from the second quarter and 34% from the same period last year. However the dollar…
Read MoreWell, we all have something to say. Our picks this month include Y Combinator's Sam Altman who lays out the playbook for startup companies; which leads you to the A13Z team's helpful list of the best startup company metrics; Mark Suster's lets us in on what he knows about venture funding (with a nice graph on knowledge evolution); the Economist magazine…
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