Once upon  a time, VCs raised big funds and wrote big cheques. They talked about putting “money to work”, and looked to put $5M – $10M into every company they backed. There were many reasons why this strategy did not work that have been well documented. And while some funds were successful with it, the [...]

I’ve probably posted about this before, but something I read this morning made me think about it, and it’s an important concept so forgive me if you’ve heard it before. Nic Brisbourne from DFJ Esprit across the pond in the UK has an interesting post on apply lean startup principles to fundraising. I think it [...]

Investors are fond of asking entrepreneurs about exit strategy. After all, Investors get in in order to get out or exit. And these days the predominant exit is to be bought by another company. So, getting a sense of who would buy you and why is a logical part of the investment decision. Prolific angel [...]

It is common when entrepreneurs are pitching to investors for those investors to offer lots of suggestions. After all, that’s our job, right? To provide value add, guidance, etc. When you invest at the seed level, little is set in stone. Pivots are expected. Still, when someone suggests something new, think hard about whether that [...]

After many years of pitching, it’s been fun (and surprisingly normal) to be on the other side listening to pitches. Over the last few weeks, the Real Ventures team has met with easily 50 companies. I took some notes on some great things to do in pitches and some things to avoid. Here they are:

With four funding transactions in closing right now, I’m thinking a lot about legal documents these days.  As I sift through stacks of documents and interact with numerous law firms, it struck me that one key party is missing from this stage of the process – the investors. And I think this is a missed [...]

I was on a panel last week at the National Angel Capital Organization‘s annual shindig. The topic? Best practices for early stage term sheets. If you’ve raised capital before you know that the term sheet is the least of your worries as it’s just a precursor to a much bigger set of definitive agreements including [...]

I’ve seen a wide variety of investor pitches over the years from the Jobs’ wannabe key note variety (i.e. no words, just pretty pictures) to the War & Peace variety (60 slides, very detailed). The goal of a pitch is not to educate, it is to sell. Education may come during questions or as the [...]