New York City is poised for a tech revival
One thing that was puzzling about the “web 2.0 boom” from 2003-2008 was how irrelevant the East Coast, and particular New York City, was…
VC’s care about the upside case, not the mean
The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when pitching VCs is to argue that their startup is likely to succeed. Instead, they should argue…
To make smarter systems, it’s all about the data
As this article by Alex Wright in the New York Times last week reminded me, when the mainstream press talks about artificial intelligence…
Thales the Milesian
Like a lot of things we think are obvious today, financial options were first invented by a philosopher: There is the anecdote of Thales the…
function my_exit_payout(…)
/* aggregateoptionsstrike_price = your options strike price per share * number of shares you own company sale price is 1) if private…
Pitching the VC partnership
The last step to raising venture capital is normally a 1 hour pitch to the whole partnership during their weekly monday meeting. This is…
The one number you should know about your equity grant
The one number you should know about your equity grant is the percent of the company you are being granted (in options, shares, whatever…
Six strategies for overcoming “chicken and egg” problems
Products with so-called networks effects get more valuable when more people use them. Famous examples are telephones and social networks…
Dividing equity between founders
A friend asked me recently if I knew of any good guidelines for dividing up equity between founders, and specifically what to do in the case…
Why you shouldn’t keep your startup idea secret
A frequent question entrepreneurs have when they are just starting their company is: how secretive should I be about my idea? My answer…
Machine learning is really good at partially solving just about any problem
There’s a saying in artificial intelligence circles that techniques like machine learning (and NLP) can very quickly get you, say, 80% of…
Options on early stage companies
I believe that what I’m about to say is accepted by venture capitalists as fact, even trivially obvious fact, yet very few entrepreneurs I…
Ideal first round funding terms
My last 2 posts were about things to avoid, so I thought it might be helpful to follow up with something more positive. Having been part of…
The problem with tranched VC investments
In venture capital, tranching refers to investments where portions of the money are released over time when certain pre-negotiated…
Why seed investors don’t like convertible notes
A popular option in seed round financing is a convertible note instead of setting a valuation in an equity financing. A convertible note is…