How much capital should you raise?
One of the biggest questions facing any entrepreneur is how much capital to raise for their startup. It’s a delicate question…one that can have a significant impact on the fate of any startup. Raise too much and you’re diluting your ownership; raise too little and your company will have trouble gaining traction or making it […]
New investment: tindie, a marketplace for the maker generation
I’m very excited to announce Version One’s investment in Tindie, a marketplace for gadget tinkerers and the maker generation. Many think that 2012 was the year of hardware. Today, getting a product ready for market is less risky and cheaper than ever, thanks to rapid prototyping with 3D printers, cheaper high-powered computers that can run […]
5 traits of the most successful entrepreneurs
Over the course of my career, I have met, worked with, and/or invested in hundreds of entrepreneurs. During this time, I’ve seen some rise to the top, while others never quite made it past the starting line. While there may not be a sure-fire recipe to guarantee success as an entrepreneur, a clear profile of […]
How to manage your inside sales team
For many SaaS companies, the effectiveness of the inside sales team is the key to scaling up. After all, other marketing channels often either hit a ceiling (i.e. inbound marketing, PPC, etc.) or simply aren’t efficient enough (i.e. all offline marketing activities). However, managing an inside sales team is tough and you need a well-oiled machine […]
Can enterprise SaaS products be viral?
“Going viral” is often the holy grail for Internet startups, who hope to quickly scale to hundreds of thousands of users (then hundreds of millions) with relatively low user acquisition costs. However, in a recent blog post and presentation, Andrew Chen argues that SaaS products aren’t viral: “For consumer internet entrepreneurs that are working on big markets, […]