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Venture Capital

A collection of 30 issues

How to pitch your startup under 10 minutes

The following startup pitch guide is focused on presentations that need to be done within 10 minutes (or less). It is very hard, and some entrepreneurs master this. But everyone can get better at this with practice.

Demystifying the Cap Table

One essential document in startup financing journey is the "Cap Table," short for Capitalization Table. While it may sound like a complex financial document, it is quite simple in its construction and provides the basis for various financial analyses related to a company's capital structure. Understanding

What does it take to lead early-stage investments?

Venture investing in the early stage is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of strategic and operational work to achieve key business and financial milestones which are prerequisite for growth equity. No one can do all the work alone. In fact, it requires the right type

The Discipline of Business Updates

Sharing regular business updates is an important discipline for startups and management teams. For me, these regular updates come each week and month in the forms of weekly CEO calls and email updates from CEOs. These regular updates focus on the state of the business - finance, sales, marketing, product,

Capitalization Table (cap table) Basics

In my experience, I have found that even with founders and entrepreneurs have various levels of understanding of capital structure represented by what's called a capitalization table or "cap table." Basics: Cap table is an Excel file that summarizes equity ownership structure in a corporation. The

Making meaningful investments

As a technology investor, people ask me what I invest in. After talking about thematic focus areas, I point out that I like to invest in solutions that are solving meaningful problems. Sometimes, it's hard to convey what's meaningful because what's meaningful to one

How to build A+ team?

Originally posted on July 23, 2022 Recent article in WSJ about Tour de France provides a good reminder of how to build high performing team and what great teamwork looks like. To win the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, it definitely takes more than the lead rider. Lead

Approaches to Strategic Financial Planning for Startups

Originally posted on September 7, 2022 I want to turn to a different topic: approaches to strategic financial planning for startups, a timely topic now that we are in September! A few weeks ago, I wrote why starting financial and strategic planning early in 2H of the year is important.

A note on due diligence as a VC

Originally posted on November 23, 2022 I wrote about due diligencing ethics in my last post; I want to follow up and write about due diligence in general. Typically, people think that due diligence involves getting answers to a checklist. This is a small (and easy) part of the due

How startups can navigate 2023?

Originally posted on March 31, 2023 It's kind of crazy that we are now at the end of March. It is shocking how fast time is moving. I remember that it wasn't that long ago that I was working with companies on budgets and 2023 strategic