At the end of each year I like to reflect on things I’d like to improve on in the following year. As such, I’ve decided to perform a SWOT analysis on myself to thoroughly assess where I am and where I want to go. A SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. No matter the industry, all businesses and organizations regularly perform … Continue reading Self S.W.O.T Analysis
At the beginning of every day, I usually spend an hour or so reading a variety of different newsletters, articles, and blogs on the latest and greatest happenings in venture capital. It’s been a great way to stay current and keep a steady pulse on things. In the line of work I’m in, knowing what’s going on at all times is important for maintaining credibility … Continue reading My Perspective on Hot Topics in Venture Part 1 – Bitcoin
Over the years, I’ve become more and more convinced that what sets apart great venture capitalists from the not-so-great ones is investment discipline. By default, most all people who work in venture capital are intellectually brilliant and have strong entrepreneurial backgrounds. As such, if everyone is smart, it makes sense to suggest that brilliance alone isn’t a true competitive advantage. Another competitive advantage is having … Continue reading The Pursuit of Discipline in Venture Capital
I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast this week about the major difference between risk and uncertainty. Like most people, I previously assumed risk and uncertainty were essentially the same thing. But after listening to the researchers on this podcast it became blaringly apparent how different the two are. Webster defines risk as the “possibility of loss or injury” or “someone or something that … Continue reading Understanding Risk and Uncertainty: Making Wise Decisions As An Entrepreneur
In the past week or so I’ve been asked by a couple up-and-coming VC fund managers what investors really want to know before they’ll invest in a fund. Without much concentration, I think it’s easy to say that most investors want to know about current and past performance. But if you think about this question from a different angle, I believe investors also want to … Continue reading Measuring Investment Performance by Measuring Deal Flow
My wife and I went out with a group of friends and family last night to celebrate my birthday and had a great time. We spent a fair amount of time standing around waiting for our table because the restaurant was crowded and there were several in our group (like 11 or so). Once we finally sat down I decided to sit in the middle … Continue reading Caught In The “Dead Zone”
Let me start off by saying that I have nothing against dogs and that in general, I think dogs are great. In fact, ever since we got our dog two years ago, I’ve noticed patterns in his behavior that suggest he might make for a great CEO. To set the stage, I never had any pets growing up. Sure, I had a few animals, but … Continue reading The Few Things I Admire about My Dog
Over the last week or so, I have seen quite a few pitch decks from VC fund managers who are either raising a new or follow-on fund investment fund. One of the interesting things about the majority of these meetings is not going page by page through the firm’s pitch deck in its entirety. It’s a small observation, but meaningful in a lot of ways. … Continue reading The “Un-Pitch Deck”
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
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
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