Venture Capital

We are running the Venture Deals Online Course from September 13, 2020 – November 6, 2020. Our summer session had over 10,000 registrants and over 2,000 people completing the course. We got a lot of feedback about things to improve, several of which we are introducing into the Fall session. Once again, we’ll do a weekly AMA with a variety of people participating. We are also creating a new Venture Deals online community available to all past and current participants of the course. We’ll provide the link for the online community on day one (we’ll be using Mighty Networks, which I’ve loved for my virtual Startup Community.) ...

I had a really nice week off the grid. More on that in another post. I woke up this morning with a very long run in mind. The air quality in Longmont is awful because of the forest fires and, after checking the weather on my iPhone and seeing an air quality index of 138, I decided that a run wasn’t going to happen. So, I ate breakfast with Amy and read the Sunday New York Times. ...

My partner Chris Moody decided to be a vlogger and has started a new video series. I suggested he hang out on TikTok but he prefers trying to get famous on Youtube. So far he has 57 Views but 102 Subscribers. I find that fascinating. Enjoy!

We are running the Venture Deals Online Course again this summer. But before I get to that, I want to highlight a blog post from a Black colleague. I’m getting, and reading, many of these each day. For the foreseable future, I’ll highlight and amplify one at the beginning of each post I do, in case you are interested. Today’s post is from Ruben Porras , who is a Techstars alum (Director of Operations at CreatorBox.) He wrote Black Lives Matter. At Work. In Life. ...

I do a lot of random podcasts and especially like to be an early guest on new ones to help get them started. 001 – Brad Feld The first five episodes are with me, David Cohen, Susan Conover, Amos Schwartzfarb, and Charlie O’Donnell. Andrew Waine is the producer. He’s currently a senior at the University of Florida finishing his Bachelor’s degree in the Summer of 2020. He reminds me of a young Harry Stebbings of the 20 Minute VC who reached out to me early (I was on Harry’s 65th episode in 2015), hustled, and did a fun interview with me where we cover the following topics. ...

Harry Stebbings just released a new episode with me on the 20 Minute VC. I love how Harry uses all caps to title the episodes. 20VC: BRAD FELD ON WHY MARKET SIZE AT EARLY STAGE IS NOT HELPFUL, HIS BIGGEST LEARNINGS FROM THE BOOM & BUST OF THE DOT COM AND HOW THE BEST VCS WORK FOR THEIR CEOS I adore Harry. I did an interview with him early on (#65) so it’s particularly fun to do an interview number that is great than this year. ...

There are some blog posts that every entrepreneur should read. Hunter Walk at Homebrew recently wrote one of them. It’s titled Oh Shit, Your VC Just Quit Her Fund! What a Good CEO Should Do Next. He covers three cases: Bullish aka You Are Absolutely Killing It Written You Off Too Early To Tell – Some Good Stuff, Some Challenges But A Lot To Do The real gold in this post is in the Too Early To Tell category. Hunter has a great lead in: ...

My partner Seth Levine has written several posts over the years on the topic of how to get a job in venture capital. His 2019 post, titled creatively How To Get A Job In Venture Capital is excellent. Things have changed in the last decade since his 2008 post titled How to get a job in venture capital (revisited) , which was an update from his 2005 post titled How to become a venture capitalist . All three posts are worth reading. ...

Several years ago, I wrote a post titled Why VCs Should Recycle Their Management Fees . From the start of Foundry Group in 2007, we have felt strongly about this. We feel that if an LP gives us a $1 to invest, we should invest at least that $1, not $0.85 (the average fee load over a decade for a typical VC fund is 15%.) Our goal for each fund is actually to invest closer to 110%, which means if an LP gives us a $1 to invest, we are actually investing $1.10. ...

I’m a recent conversation with Eric Paley , he gave me an amazingly wonderful analogy for how the career of a VC unfolds. He said: “Being a VC is like taking a walk from Boston to San Francisco” I’d never heard that before so I said: “tell me more.” He went on an awesome ramble, which I’ll try to capture below. You start out on a sunny day in Boston. You put on your new, clean walking shoes. It’s just walking. It’s fun, fresh, and exciting. It’s a new experience, with lots of hopes and expectations in front of you. You get tons of support and encouragement from all of your friends. You meet plenty of new and interesting people. It’s just walking. ...