Raising money is hard. Entrepreneurs need to understand what’s involved – from what to consider when picking the right venture partner and how to think about the economic and control rights at stake, to what life will be like after the deal closes. This assumes that the company is ready to raise venture money in the first place – an important consideration that not enough entrepreneurs really stop to consider. ...
Over the past 25 years, I’ve attended approximately 14,387 board meetings. My partners and I talk a lot about how to improve them and today released The Foundry Group Manifesto on Board Meetings . It follows: In 2013, I wrote a book with Mahendra Ramsinghani about board meetings titled Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your Board of Directors. It was a tough book to write because every time I dug into it, I got bored, but I think it ended up being a contribution to the corpus of entrepreneurial knowledge. However, I anticipate Bored Meetings will be an even more significant contribution.
If you enjoyed I’m a VC , take another walk down memory lane with me back to 2015 and watch our second video, Worst of Times. More soon. Hint, hint …
As a preparation for something new and exciting, let’s reminisce a little. In 2011, we did our first Foundry Group music video “I’m a VC.” I remember being amazed when the Youtube views went over 100,000. I recall being equally amazed when I heard that our IT guy (Ryan ) had cleaned up our random Google accounts, deleted video@foundrygroup.com , and as a result deleted the video. When it was restored, the view counter was at 0. ...
It’s Sunday and it’s -8 degrees in Boulder. Egads. As I sat in my warm office catching up on email from the week, I sent links to our Foundry Group videos to a friend that had never seen them. I realized two things: (1) I’m still annoyed with Ryan for accidentally deleting our Youtube account and resetting the counters on both videos from > 100,000 views to 0 views and (2) A bunch of people in my world have probably never seen these videos. ...
I just did a long 90 minute video interview stretch with Boulder Digital Arts that generated a number of specific videos on entrepreneurship. While they are selling them, a few are free. One of the free ones is on Founder’s Syndrome and Origin Stories. Given the last few posts I wrote on CEOs, and some upcoming ones, I thought you might be interested in this one. If you liked that, take a look at some of the others. They include: ...
Time for a new Foundry Group video. If you want the backstory, go take a look at the post Foundry Group Announces Major Shift In Investment Strategy . If you just want a break from reality and hopefully a few laughs in the process, enjoy. The video has over 100 easter eggs referring to either portfolio companies of ours or other things in our lives. Some are obvious (like the tshirts), some are very obscure. If you find one, list it in the comments. The best, most obscure one will win a special treat. ...
Today’s first Tech Star video has nothing to do with TechStars . Instead, it will go down in history as another nerd period piece by Terry Kawaja from GCA Savvian. I first met Terry when we hired him to be CFO of Raindance Communications to help take it public. We had a twisted sister streak then which he maintains to this day. Enjoy the video – it’s a great one. And – I’ll see you later this morning with the real TechStars Founders 2010 Episode 4 video.