I'm testing Skribit, and I just noticed that there's a request to talk about my header image. It's taken from a shot of XCOR's LOX/methane engine, which was just named one of TIME Magazine's "Inventions of the Year" for 2007. It's a prototype built under subcontract for NASA; descendents of it will one day land on the Moon and on Mars. Yes, it … [Read more...]
Raising Capital: Part 06
December 6, 2007 by
This is a continuation of a previous set of posts and is sixth in a series.The most common question a VC gets asked is "What sort of deals do you invest in?" Most of them will give variations of the same answer... looking for a fast-growing market, strong technology, great management, at a fair price. And it's nice to have milestones to know when … [Read more...]
Raising Capital: Part 05
November 24, 2007 by
This is a continuation of a previous set of posts and is fifth in a series.I'll come back to this one in more detail later... but, for now, you need to figure out if a particular firm is going to invest in your geography. (Or, alternatively, if you're willing to move to their geography. Bay Area VCs are particularly bad about wanting you to move … [Read more...]
Raising Capital: Part 04
November 20, 2007 by
This is a continuation of a previous set of posts and is fourth in a series.Not all venture investors are created equal. Most firms have specialties. Even within firms, individual partners will have specialties. Don't waste your time on firms who don't focus on companies that look like you.You can read the parameters on the chart above. Pay … [Read more...]
Raising Capital: Part 03
November 19, 2007 by
This is a continuation of a previous set of posts and is third in a series.When I taught a semester in entrepreneurship for the MBA students across the street, I spent an entire 90-minute class on this single slide...The first thing to know about the venture capital cycle is: it's not the VC's money! They like to pretend that it is (I can say … [Read more...]
Raising Capital: Part 02
November 15, 2007 by
This is a continuation of a previous post and is second in a series.I usually try to get some audience participation going at this point; unlike the PDFs, the Keynote slides (I don't use PowerPoint except when forced to) are set to not display the "good news" text until manually triggered; same for the "bad news." So I try to get the audience to … [Read more...]
Raising Capital: Part 01
November 12, 2007 by
So I was teaching a class for Paul Steffes in ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) last week. One of the things I love about being on staff at a university is that I can drop in to a graduate class, teach to very smart people for ninety minutes, then leave. As I proved a couple of years ago when I was teaching in the College of Management, … [Read more...]
GT Edison Fund is official!
November 9, 2007 by
Some of you have known about this for a while... but we finally have all the correct sign-offs and can publicize the GT Edison Fund! … [Read more...]
BarCamp Organization
October 17, 2007 by
I haven't written about BarCamp last weekend because others have done a good job giving an overview of what happened. If you haven't seen the pictures, check out Flickr.But I do want to ruminate a bit on the self-organizing nature of BarCamp. … [Read more...]
