From the Investors
Alex Iskold of Techstars reflects on how he evaluated Tutum before investing and the characteristics they have that led to being acquired in “Docker Buys Tutm: What I Learned from My First Meaningful Exit as an Investor”
David Skok of Matrix Partners releases the survey results from 305 SaaS companies and focuses on their growth rates and go-to-market trends in “2015 Pacific Crest Survey – Part 1”
Angel Investor William Mougayar provides an in-depth review of 160 Blockchain companies in Financial Services across 25 categories in 3 segments in “The Global Landscape of Blockchain Companies in Financial Services”
Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures congratulates Clutter on their new round, and shares why he’s happy about it, even though he invested in a competitor in “What To Do When Your Competitor Gets Funded?”
Rodrigo Martinez of Point Nine Capital highlights why drones are attractive today, their different applications, drone companies and investors in the space in “Drone Startups and Investors’ Landscape”
Aaref Hilaly of Sequoia Capital looks forward with optimism to the future of autonomous vehicles, on land and sky, and explains why in “Drone Delivery Could Be A Reality Within Months – If Government Gets Out of the Way”
From the Operators
Poornima Vijayashanker of Femgineer and Melody McCloskey of StyleSeat discuss what it takes to raise capital at the various stages of a startup, from Seed to Series A and beyond in “How Investors Add Value Beyond the Check” (video)
Sheila Marcelo of Care.com talks about the personal life eperiences and passion that let her to building Care.com in “Seedcamp Podcast, Episode 62” (podcast)
Cameron Peake of Digit selects the top three opportunities that have the potential to change FinTech, expand financial services, and generate attractive returns in “The Three Trends to Watch in Emerging Markets FinTech”
Shri Bhashyam of EquityZen explores the safe harbors for 409A valuations and why they matter in “Demystifying 409A Valuations: Part 2”
Chad Fowler of Wunderlist advises leaders to not be proud of how many balls they can juggle, but to focus on the essential task at hand in “Great Leaders Don’t Juggle Priorities”
Serial Entrepreneur Dan Martell knows that fundraising is a sexy topic, but covers what he calls ‘the dark side’ of raising Venture Capital in “The Hidden Costs of VC Funding”
Failing Forward – Embracing Failure as an Entrepreneur
Guest post by Christopher Brereton, Co-Founder of Tayamo.
Let’s face it, as an entrepreneur you’re going to fail and fail a lot. You’ll have assumptions, you’ll spend money (sometimes mountains of it), you’ll recruit incredible people to work with you and unfortunately you may waste their time. You’ll even build full scale products that end up sitting on the proverbial shelf because nobody cared like you thought they would. (Read his story of learning to overcome failure)
