Tag: Silicon Valley
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You’ve been meeting with investors day after day. You get a lot of “very interestings” but no actual checks. What are these people looking for? Today, I thought I’d explain what I look for in a startup. As an angel investor, I invest in about 1-2% of the companies I…
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+ Entrepreneur, Finance, Founders, Investing, Money, Silicon Valley, Startup, Startups, Tech, Venture Capital+
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Yesterday, I attended the Remote Demo Day for the latest class from the Launch Accelerator, a startup accelerator run by noted investor Jason Calacanis. We hear a lot about accelerators (also known as incubators), from famous programs like Y Combinator or Techstars to small, local outfits. One thing most of…
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+ Accelerator, Angel Investing, Bay Area, Incubator, Investing, Silicon Valley, Software, Startup, Tech, Venture, Venture Capital+
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Investors look at a lot of startups before laying a bet. But how do we know if the company’s product is catching on, or has failed to find traction? And as a founder, how do you know if you’re headed in the right direction or…nowhere? In a recent episode of…
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“Everybody thought I was crazy.” That’s Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. When he started the company in 2012, it was a small and quirky startup. Bitcoin had only been in use for three years and remained relatively obscure. But now, it’s safe to say not many people think Armstrong is…
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+ Angel Investing, Bitcoin, Coinbase, Crypto, Cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Investing, Litecoin, Silicon Valley, Startups, Tech, Y Combinator+
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In 2012, investor Garry Tan got an e-mail. A young Airbnb engineer named Brian Armstrong had sent him a tiny fraction of a bitcoin, worth just a few cents. But this message piqued his curiosity. How many people send you money for nothing? Tan happened to be one of the…
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+ Angel Investor, Coinbase, Crypto, Cryptocurrencies, Investing, IPOs, Money, Silicon Valley, Stocks, Tech, Venture Capital+
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I came across an incredible stat last night: Worldwide venture funding has nearly doubled YoY reaching $125B and grew by half QoQ in Q1 2021, according to Crunchbase. On average, two startups crossed the unicorn valuation threshold each working day during the first three months of the year. Users increasing…
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+ Angel, Angel Investing, Angel Investor, Silicon Valley, Software, Startup, Startups, Tech, VC, Venture, Venture Capital+
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I listened to a fascinating podcast this morning in which Jason Calacanis, an early investor in companies including Uber and Calm, broke down how to measure startup success. The key metrics depend on what kind of company you’re looking at: Consumer companies: Of the biggest users, how many are retained?…
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+ Angel Investing, Angel Investor, Entrepreneur, Investing, Silicon Valley, Software, Startups, Tech, VC, Venture Capital+
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On average there are 7x the number of billion dollar exits now than a decade ago. This was Eric Feng writing in September 2018. Since then, this staggering increase in startups hitting that magic “unicorn” $1 billion valuation has only accelerated. Data indicates the number of unicorns has nearly doubled…
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You walk into the room, palms sweating. You go over your script in your head. You pray to God your computer doesn’t crash. Eyeing you skeptically are a bunch of grey haired money guys. Don’t screw this up. At the very least, that may be how the public imagines the…
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+ Angel Investor, Finance, Invest, Investing, Programming, SaaS, Silicon Valley, Software, Startup, Startups, Tech, VC, Venture Capital+
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The co-founders of lab testing startup uBiome are under indictment for fraud and are currently on the run. Listening to a podcast about uBiome this morning, the parallels between it and Theranos struck me as uncanny: The two co-founders were romantically involved, just as Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was with…
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Tremendous 