DealHorizon - the faster, easier way to create and share business plans
Ed is an east coast-based venture capitalist investing in software, Internet, and digital media companies.
Quicklinks
Recent Posts
- Startups and Intellectual Property (IP)
- Never give up but move on quickly
- The New York Startup Market Rocks and is REAL
- Know When to Hold ‘em, Know When to Fold ‘em
- Know When to Hold 'em, Know When to Fold 'em
- Put your users first!
- Standard investor update for startups
- Don't build an empire overnight - lessons from FreshDirect and Webvan
- Scaling your management style
- EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum - more behind the story
- 4 Types of CEO Behavior when Dealing with Boards
- The Ongoing Data Revolution
- Is it a feature or product?
- The Gartner Magic Quadrant - a necessary evil in IT
- Market positioning for startups - focus, focus, focus
- When to ramp sales
- Startups and financial models for SAAS companies
- Google acquires portfolio company Gizmo5
- The Googlization of IT
- Washers, dryers and secret sauce - why naming your technology is important
Archives
- May 2012 (1)
- October 2011 (1)
- 2011 (4)
- 2010 (10)
- 2009 (17)
By Category
- External (33)
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Posted: Wednesday 16 May 2012
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Lately questions about Intellectual Property or IP have been cropping up left and right. Eliot Durbin (my partner at BOLDstart Ventures) and I had a long discussion this morning in preparation for his panel today about IP and patents. Last week, we met with a company and when we asked about their core IP, they [...]
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Posted: Friday 21 October 2011
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As a young kid, I was always taught the valuable lesson of never giving up or quitting. No matter how many times you get knocked down, you have to stand up and keep moving. That is the same trait that I also admire in many of the entrepreneurs that I have funded over the years. [...]
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Posted: Friday 15 April 2011
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OK, I may be biased having been an early stage VC based out of New York since 1996, but I must say that the vibe, energy, and people at the Techstars NYC Demo Day event yesterday was simply awesome. Dave Tisch and team simply did a fantastic job guiding the startups, recruiting the mentors, and [...]
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Posted: Monday 14 February 2011
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I had a tough call with an entrepreneur this morning. His company raised a fair amount of seed financing but did not hit the milestones it needed to in order to raise a real round of venture capital. The product is nice but they took too long iterating and releasing a subsequent version while the [...]
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Posted: Monday 14 February 2011
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I had a tough call with an entrepreneur this morning. His company raised a fair amount of seed financing but did not hit the milestones it needed to in order to raise a real round of venture capital. The product is nice but they took too long iterating and releasing a subsequent version while the [...]
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Posted: Thursday 13 January 2011
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As a VC who invests in seed and first rounds, I love revenue just as much as the next guy. However, the focus on revenue should play second fiddle to a user/customer first experience. Over the years, how many times have we seen companies grow from next to nothing in user base and somehow forget [...]
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Posted: Wednesday 20 October 2010
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I remember when we hired a new CEO for one of our portfolio companies and my tip to him was to overcommunicate. We had a few large VCs on the board and a number of high-profile angels that could also...
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Posted: Thursday 7 October 2010
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The other day I received a direct mail piece from FreshDirect, the online delivery service based out of New York. What struck me is that the service has been around for years in NYC, and it is now getting out to some of the suburbs in New Jersey. In fact, after having done a little [...]
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Posted: Thursday 30 September 2010
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After meeting with a number of entrepreneurs I recently seed funded, it was clear to me that one of the major challenges founders face is how to continue to scale their management style. My preferred seed investment is in an...
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Posted: Wednesday 7 July 2010
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Congratulations to Greenplum and Scott Yara, Bill Cook, and Luke Lonergan in particular! It has been quite a roller coaster ride over the last 10 years and there were a number of times we stared at the abyss only to...
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Posted: Friday 30 April 2010
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As I have stressed over the years, it is imperative for board members and their management teams to have open dialogue. If you are a CEO, I encourage you to share more rather than less information. One of the best...
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Posted: Thursday 1 April 2010
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In early 2006, I wrote a post titled "The next generation web, scaling and data mining will matter." In it, I highlighted some thoughts on the future: I truly believe the next battleground will be based on scaling the back...
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Posted: Tuesday 30 March 2010
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During the last month I have spent more time looking at Angel investments as I believe it is a great time to start a business. However, one key question I keep asking myself after meeting with entrepreneur after entrepreneur is...
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Posted: Thursday 4 February 2010
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Lately, I feel as if I have been spending an inordinate amount of time with my companies talking about marketing. Related to this, one of my portfolio companies recently received a number of nice emails from the board related to...
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Posted: Friday 22 January 2010
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I was on a call yesterday with an inspired and talented management team. As we walked through the deck, one point particularly struck me as I listened to their well-honed pitch. The company was trying to boil the ocean and...
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Posted: Thursday 14 January 2010
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While 2009 was a tough year, I must say that it was nice to see a number of our portfolio companies have blow out 4th quarters for bookings and growth. Despite that, I am still taking a cautiously optimistic approach...
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Posted: Thursday 10 December 2009
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The other day I met with an entrepreneur I was advising as he prepared to raise his next round of funding. In the meeting, he wanted me to narrow in and focus on his financial model. Financial models for startups...
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Posted: Friday 13 November 2009
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Congratulations to Michael Robertson and team at Gizmo5 for all of their hard work and perseverance! There is not a lot I can tell you about the future plans for Google Voice, but I do believe it is important to...
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Posted: Tuesday 27 October 2009
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Today I took a sales team from a portfolio company to meet with a couple of senior IT executives at a major retail company. Towards the end of the meeting, it started to become quite clear to me the effect...
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Posted: Wednesday 16 September 2009
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Our washer and dryer was on the fritz today, and as I started to do some research on large capacity stackable units I started to get overwhelmed with all of the new terminology and features. After all, isn’t a washer...
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