Startup Life
Technology. Startups. Venture Capital. My Life.
Venture Capital
Top 100 Networked VCs
Jun 29th
As a follow-up to a prior post, Global VC Blog Directory (blogs written/managed by over 100 VCs), I found an excellent on TechCrunch that discusses the Top-100 Networked VCs.
If you’re fundraising, or thinking of fundraising, I highly suggest that you take a look at these firms.
Here are the top 10:
1. Draper Fisher Jurvetson
2. Sequoia Capital
3. Accel Partners
4. Intel Capital
5. First Round Capital
6. Dag Ventures
7. New Enterprise Associates
8. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
9. Benchmark Capital
10. Ron Conway
(via TechCrunch; full article here.)
Viral Marketing Whitepaper
Jun 5th
Viral marketing can be a huge asset to the launch and sustained growth and success of any product or business.
I am in the process of creating a whitepaper that brings in proven strategies as well as specific case studies of successful viral marketing efforts. The whitepaper will also cover more specific strategies centered around mobile App Stores and effective utilization of Facebook Connect and Facebook application pages. Lastly, it will contain a bible of social media strategies.
I kindly ask all of you to share any viral strategies that you have used to-date, along with key dates and timelines, screenshots, verbiage used in messaging, and key metrics (user growth, #downloads, etc…) achieved from the strategy.
Please leave comments below, or DM/@ me on Twitter with links to your story, my username is @jsookman. I will be tracking posts with the #UbiquitousVC hashtag, so please use it!
Building Businesses
Jun 5th
Sitting down to write a whitepaper, I figured I’d find a good model to start with first! I was told to check out some of the whitepapers over at Khosla Ventures — and it was a gold mine of great information. I thought I’d go ahead and share it with you.
They have 2 main sections for “entrepreneurial resources:” (1) industry views, and (2) building businesses.
There are some fantastic whitepapers in these categories:
- entrepreneurship
- people & management
- product management
- sales effectiveness
- risk management
If you know of any other publically available sources of great whitepapers like these, I invite you to please leave a comment below, or Tweet it with the hashtag #UbiquitousVC
Global VC Blog Directory
Jun 2nd
Attention all entrepreneurs and start-ups!
A comprehensive list of VC-authored blogs have been compiled by Larry Cheng, a Boston-based VC. The list was ranked by number of Google Reader Subscribers as of May 2009.
If you’re getting serious about pitching for venture dollars, I suggest that you start subscribing to some of these blogs (just add them to your Viigo feeds).
It’s important for entrepreneurs to know about a number of things before pitching for dollars:
1. Understand the psychology of VCs
2. Understand the business models of VCs
3. Understand how to pitch VCs
4. Understand how NOT to pitch VCs
5. Understand WHEN to pitch VCs
6. Pitch VCs with a focus in your business sector
7. Don’t pitch VCs with your competitors already in their portfolios
8. Know your pitch cold
9. Spend a few extra minutes on the slide deck
10. Know the risks associated with your business (model) and suggest mitigating strategies
11. The list goes on…
Many of the blogs listed in the index will give you lots of tips in these areas. Happy reading!