How we can improve the odds of finding unicorns
It was my first day at Version One when I realized that finding “VC-fundable” startups would not be easy. Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, posted a brilliant analysis on why VCs have to look for billion dollar companies (“unicorns”) to deliver acceptable returns, and how rare it is to invest in one: “The odds […]
3 lessons from a customer-obsessed company
Last week, I attended a fascinating talk about Customer Obsession given by Kim Rachmeler at version one’s portfolio company, Frontdesk. Kim spent 10 years at Amazon.com, where she served as VP of Worldwide Customer Service, CIO International, among several other critical roles. While it’s no secret that Amazon.com is a customer-centric company, Kim shared a […]
Funding goes global: location is no longer your financing destiny
If we look back ten years, the venture world was quite different. Investors weren’t too keen on investing out of town. And given the fact that the majority of top investors were congregated around Silicon Valley, many entrepreneurs felt compelled to move to the valley to start their business. It was much harder for a “remote” […]
How to really learn from your experiments
At any stage of a start-up’s life, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of different directions to take. In the early phases, you need to pick the right product direction and find your product-market fit. Later, you may wonder which marketing channels will work at scale and which ones won’t. Since you never want to […]
How to stay nimble as you scale
I recently spoke with a founder and CEO of a start-up that had just crossed the 200-employee milestone. Like so many others lucky enough to reach that level, he was complaining about how progress was coming to a halt as the organization grew and became more complex. I myself experienced this as COO at AbeBooks. […]