Some more data on Venture outcomes
Quick update here. The data I site below is from Foundry LP StepStone. Since my original post I’ve confirmed with them that they’re ok with my identifying them as the source of the data. And they’ve offered to help me play with the raw data of a future report – I’ll work on some interesting updates here soon! Yesterday’s post on venture outcomes – Venture Outcomes are Even More Skewed Than You Think – generated lot of traffic. Clearly, it’s interesting to put real data against a heuristic and see how reality maps to our expectations. As I pointed out in my post, the data set from Correlation Ventures I was working with had some limitations. For starters, I didn’t have the raw data to run my own cuts of the analysis. And more importantly the data were financing level, not company level. A bunch of people asked me about this and I’m working with Correlation to see if the next time they do this analysis we can get a few different views of the data. …
August 13, 2014· 4 min read
Venture Outcomes are Even More Skewed Than You Think
The typical “successful” venture portfolio is often described as having the following outcome: 1/3 of companies fail 1/3 of companies return capital (or make a small amount of money) 1/3 of companies do well Fred Wilson, for example, described this a few years ago: I’ve said many times on this blog that our target batting average is “1/3, 1/3, 1/3” which means that we expect to lose our entire investment on 1/3 of our investments, we expect to get our money back (or maybe make a small return) on 1/3 of our investments, and we expect to generate the bulk of our returns on 1/3 of our investments. …
August 12, 2014· 4 min read
It’s time to get away
As we approach August, and having recently taken some time off myself (some real time off this time – more on that experience in a different post) I thought it might be a good time to talk about the importance of vacation. No – this isn’t going to be a post that waxes poetic about the importance of recharging and how the startup culture is totally fucked up in its crazy work ethic. All true, but I’d actually like to approach the question here from a purely business perspective. …
July 31, 2014· 2 min read
Syndicate Funding on AngelList – A Company’s Perspective
A few months ago AngelList announced Syndicates – enabling investors on AngelList to create fund-like groups of investors to invest together in AngelList companies (following a single lead investor). It’s a great idea and at Foundry we quickly decided it would be an interesting experiment to form our own syndicate. We were the first formal venture fund to do this. Since then we’ve completed about 10 deals (I say “about” because we have a few things in various stages of completion as I write this – the intent of FG Angels is to make 50 AngelList investments – about 1 per week). …
May 21, 2014· 15 min read
Taking the long road
I first met Carrie and Tony Requist of U Grok It in February of 2012. We were hosting a DEMO event with VentureBeat and UGrokIt was one of a handful of companies that was chosen to come in and pitch. I remember the U Grok It presentation well for a number of reasons. For starters, Carrie and Tony are married. And living in Steamboat. Both pretty unusual for the startup world. And they were building a simple smart-phone based RFID reader with the idea of creating a consumer product that would allow individuals to easily and cheaply track their stuff – a problem I’m quite familiar with as I have an uncanny propensity to misplace things (there was much joking in the meeting about this, in fact). …
May 2, 2014· 2 min read
Why doesn’t British Airways Want to Make Money?
British Airways parent company finally got back into the black in 2013, presumably benefitting from an increasingly favorable global economy. They certainly were not benefitting by their own policies as I unfortunately found out recently. I’m writing this post in the hopes of gaining an explanation for why BA would behave so stupidly. Here’s the quick summary: A few months ago I purchased tickets from BA that were basically two round trips (one inside the other). The BA website priced them for me at the lowest available fare that included the normal fare restrictions around changing the tickets or getting a refund (changes would incur a fee and there were no refunds – got it). The disclosure on their site was minimal and there was no obvious way to buy a less restricted fare. I knew at the time I might not take the middle round trip but I wanted to lock in the tickets. …
April 30, 2014· 3 min read
Camp DevOps! (at Gluecon 2014)
One of the big uptrends in technology is the rise of DevOps. Whether your organization is a large enterprise or a fledgling startup, DevOps can help. We have seen this first hand in many of our portfolio companies and the market in general. This is why we are excited to be working with Eric Norlin and the Gluecon team and DevOps.com in bringing Camp DevOps to Boulder on May 20th. …
April 29, 2014· 2 min read
The 4 Keys to a Successful Angel Investment Strategy
With the increasing popularity of angel investment sites such as AngelList and CircleUp more and more people are making investments. I love this trend and have a longer form blog coming on the subject – which I think is massive positive force in the startup ecosystem. But this post is much shorter and to the point. I often get asked what my thoughts are on angel investing. Here are what I think are the 4 keys to a successful angel investment strategy: …
April 22, 2014· 1 min read
Just say NO to that large fundraise
I wrote a post a few years ago about using your lack of funding to your competitive advantage. The basic gist was that all businesses act within constraints and that the discipline that can result from having less money that a competitor – if you embrace it – has the ability to sharpen your focus, avoid the temptations of distraction and be more thoughtful about how and when you spend the precious cash that you have. …
March 25, 2014· 3 min read
Entrepreneurship behind the wall: A trip to Palestine
If you’ve been a reader of my blog for any time you’ll know that I’m intrigued by (and a big fan of) the notion of The Democratization of Entrepreneurship. It’s not that I think entrepreneurship solves all the world’s challenges, but I deeply believe in the notion of entrepreneurship as a catalyst for positive social change across the globe. It’s a powerful force and we’re seeing more and more examples of entrepreneurs creating real change around the world, community by community. …
March 12, 2014· 9 min read