Reflections on my first year as GP (and six years in VC!)
The first week of September is my VC anniversary. This milestone is always a great forcing function to reflect on the past year, my contributions to the startup community, as well as my overall goals. I’ve now been in VC for six full years, and I’ve written reflections dating back to 2013 when I started […]
The Version One Promise to Founders
The venture capital market has become very noisy over the past few years, especially on the early-stage side. Not a day goes by that a new fund isn’t being announced. Entrepreneurs have an increasing amount of financing options – that’s good news, but it also makes it harder to choose the right partners for your […]
My journey of finding a coach so far…
Inspired by Bill Campbell’s influence and having seen firsthand how our founders and CEOs have grown as a result of having an executive coach, I recently put out a call on Twitter for recommendations for coaches. I received a ton of recommendations (happy to share if you ping me) – thank you to everyone! I’m still trying to […]
How times have changed in twenty years…
It was 20 years ago next month that we started JustBooks, creating a marketplace that connected buyers and sellers of used, rare, and out-of-print books. We initially launched in Germany before expanding into the UK and France, and then sold the company to our North American competitor AbeBooks in 2001. My co-founder Hannes Blum and […]
Charting return multiples over time
Last week I blogged about the return multiples for our Fund I and how they perfectly illustrate just how much the power law drives VC return. Alex Norman from AngelList asked how these return multiples have changed over time and what insights could be won from that data. It was a great question and I […]