One of our portfolio companies asked me this week, “Do you all have a list of job boards your portfolio companies have had great success with in recruiting high quality engineers?” The unemployment rate for quality computer scientists/engineers in the major cities right now is zero; everyone who’s not pursuing his/her own startup can easily...
[Continue Reading]Startup idea: marketplace for business research and students seeking internships / experience
We’re looking to spend money with a startup business: a marketplace for businesses which want consulting research and students who want jobs, internships and experience. Specifically, we want a website where we can advertise the research topics that are important to us (e.g., best practices of operational improvement among VCs), along with the qualifications (e.g.,...
[Continue Reading]Valuing Startup Employee Options
This is the third of three blog posts on financial modeling for startups. The first was on best practices in building financial models, and the second was a template financial model for a startup. I’ve often found it helpful to have on hand a simple model showing the impact of each financing stages on all...
[Continue Reading]Save the US from becoming Greece
Sometime prior to the 4th Century BCE, the Greeks invented democracy. They were a model for the world. Unfortunately, I think the Greeks are well on their way to being a model for the world again. In their inability to plan for the future, their incompetence in delivering basic government services (like tax collection and...
[Continue Reading]America’s educational system is broken
I was fortunate to attend Wednesday the CED’s Postsecondary Education Summit on Business Leadership for 21st Century Education Policies, as well as their annual fundraising dinner. The CED is a leader in leveraging the business community to promote rational economic policies; I was very impressed by the people they have on their team. After opening remarks...
[Continue Reading]How to ask your board for introductions
Venture capitalists and your other board members want to help you, and in fact are paid to help you. As T.A. McCann suggests, you want your VCs ideally to not just make an introduction, but as appropriate, help you close the deal. However, without some guidance from you, your board/VCs cannot provide you with maximum...
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