Opinions and Thoughts on Venture Capital, Investing, and Startups
A Chief is the leader of a tribal society. In Scottish clanns, the principal function of the chief was to lead his clan in battle on land and sea. All Chiefs need to be great communicators. They need to communicate a common purpose and rally their tribe to fulfill that purpose. They are often judges and … Continue reading You are not a CTO (yet).
When it comes to your team slide in your pitch, there are usually two lines of thoughts: First tell me who you are and why I should listen to you First show me the problem set and what's hard about solving that problem. Once I understand what you want to achieve, show me how your … Continue reading Pitch Clinic: Your Team Slide Sucks.
I got a lot of good feedback on my last post on SaaS: Should You Fix EBITDA Margins or Revenue Growth? The main criticism was that the companies of each cell were not true peer-companies and a such not comparable. I admit that perhaps it was a bad judgment using these companies to illustrate NTM revenue growth and … Continue reading Cloud Index: EBITDA Margins versus Revenue Growth
First off: You should have a great product. It's pointless to try and "fix" revenue growth if you don't have a great product. But perhaps you have too many products, or your prospects don't understand what you stand for, or your operations are less than optimal. [At the end of this post I will include … Continue reading SaaS: Should You Fix EBITDA Margins or Revenue Growth?
Europe seems to be on a roll. The European venture industry in 2017 saw €16.9Bn in venture capital deal value, a 13% increase year-over-year [1]. And "2017 proved to be a rebound year for VC-backed IPOs, which raised over €3 billion across 53 offerings." [1] The SuperReturn/SuperVenture conference in Berlin was drinking its own Kool-Aid, and … Continue reading Dangerous Paths of European Venture Capital.
In Part I I've written about perception of great VCs, and in Part II I showed some data on actual meaningful exits with outcomes greater than $500m over the past ten years. Meaningful exits often take 9 to 11 years to materialize (e.g. FireEye was founded in February 2004 with IPO in September 2013; Forescout … Continue reading Most Successful Cybersecurity VCs: The Top Firms. (Part III)
Yesterday I published a quick survey what CEOs, CISOs, and cybersecurity professionals think are the most successful VCs. The answers were somewhat surprising: There was no clear leader, and very few picked VCs that had outstanding exits over the past 15 years. So why do so many supposedly great cybersecurity VCs -- the "most successful", … Continue reading Most Successful Cybersecurity VCs: The Last 15 Years. (Part II)
The firm I work for has a fund-of-funds business -- we invest in what we believe are the very best venture capital firms. We have reasonable insights into fund performance: who is driving returns, and which sector is successful. Market perception, however, is driving by people who are the loudest, by content, and by marketing. … Continue reading Most Successful Cybersecurity VCs: A Quick Survey. (Part I)