Over the last few years there has been an ongoing dialogue amongst pension funds on whether or not actively managed funds are better than passively managed funds. This has been an ongoing topic in the pension world for several years now. Having observed and participated in these conversations I have noticed there are usually two sides to this argument: On the “pro” side there are fund … Continue reading Mutual Funds, Index Funds, or VC Funds?
I was in the middle of reviewing some of our VC investment managers and I started to think about the difficulty VC managers have in finding and selecting good companies to invest in. Having worked with individual companies before, I can attest it is an extremely difficult task. Entrepreneurs have tough jobs too. For first-time entrepreneurs, starting a new company can be like driving a … Continue reading Picking Winners is Hard
In the last week and a half, I have been on four separate airplanes and in three different airports. One of the things I tend to notice more when I’m traveling is how people behave when they’re in large groups. When you observe a large group of people, say, walking through an airport terminal, you begin to notice patterns. Such patterns include speech, gestures, tones, … Continue reading What I Learned From People-Watching
After I graduated college with my civil engineering degree, I knew deep down inside I was likely to change career paths at some point in the future. It wasn’t that I didn’t like engineering, it was just a lot slower in the real world than I had pictured in my head. Nearly two years after working as an engineer job I had transitioned to a … Continue reading Most Goals Are Non-Linear
It has been very interesting to read the many recent articles of prominent venture capitalists speaking out about the mistreatment of women in venture. Here we are in 2017, just 45 years after Congress passed Equal Rights for Women that outlined employers could no longer discriminate base on a person’s sex, and it is still a topic of conversation. Sigh… In the course of American … Continue reading We Need More Women In Venture Capital
As soon as I wrote the title of this blog post I jokingly thought to myself, “Wait, is there a such thing as a non-difficult entrepreneur?” The obvious answer to that question is yes, but for anyone who consistently works with entrepreneurs, it seems the really difficult entrepreneurs are the ones that are most memorable (and not in a good way). When you examine the … Continue reading Dealing With Difficult Entrepreneurs
I’m not big on clichés, but there are a few mottoes I live by that I believe have helped me quite a bit in life. I won’t list all of them here, but here are two I believe are worthy of sharing publicly. Motto #1: Incremental Progress Incremental progress is a methodology I adopted when I started learning Spanish 3 years ago. In short, incremental … Continue reading Incremental Progress + Purposeful Preparation = Positive Outcomes
In any given week I might have meetings with 5 to 10 different companies. Most of these companies are early-stage in nature and are often seeking one of two things: Advice and/or capital. If I had to guess, I’d say 10% are seeking advice, 85% are seeking capital, and just 5% are seeking both. For the overwhelming majority of those that are just seeking capital I … Continue reading The Importance of Validating Your Assumptions
Let me start by saying that I have a deep respect for entrepreneurs because they put it all on the line to make their dreams happen. But what I often wonder about is the underlying reason for why people want to become entrepreneurs in the first place. I’m sure there are many reasons, but I’ve narrowed it down to the three reasons that I believe … Continue reading Don’t Build What you Despise. Build Something Great.
One of the things I used to struggle with early on in my career was keeping things in perspective. I remember one of my earlier managers telling me “to never get too high on my highs or too low on my lows.” Thinking back, this was really good advice that I’ve learned to apply in many areas of my life. I was working in sales at … Continue reading Keeping Things In Perspective
TheJCurve 