Understanding How Dilution Affects You at a Startup

This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. Dilution. Or as industry insiders call it, “taking a haircut.”

Should Startups Focus on Profitability? An Important Trade-off to Understand

Never Ask a Busy Person to Lunch. Here’s Why:

OK. I know with a title like that I’m going to subject myself to people thinking I’m just being a grumpy, exclusive VC. That’s not the point. It’s honest advice so please judge once you’re read the post. And despite getting flamed (as expected) in…

Why Your Startup Doesn’t Need a COO

It’s very common for startup companies to have COO’s. So I know I’m getting myself into a bit of trouble by writing this. But …

The Co-Founder Mythology

I spoke at Stanford last year about starting a tech company. They really cleverly chopped the video up into small bite-sized segments.

So for anybody who reads my “This Week in VC” transcripts but doesn’t watch the video — this one’s for you! It’s only 3…

Why Super Pro-rata Rights are Not a Good Deal for Entrepreneurs

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Chris Sacca fly by that prompted me to want to write a blog post helping entrepreneurs understand why they should push back against VCs asking for “super pro-rata” rights. I’ll explain what…

What Should You Do with Your Crappy Little Services Business?

This post originally appeared on TechCrunch.

There’s a line of thinking in Silicon Valley that you should build product businesses rather than services businesses. This thinking is largely driven by…

The Amazing Power of Deflationary Economics for Startups

I’m often asked by people what investment areas interest me.

10 Marketing Lessons for Early-Stage Tech Startups

I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. I have adopted the motto “good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgment.” We need to learn…

The Controversial First Role to Hire After Your “A Round”

I’ve thought a lot about team construction of early stage companies.

I was once asked on Quora what my idea startup team would be. I wrote the following:

“I like to invest at the…