George Doriot (dor-ee-oh) was the key to modern venture capital and most of the rest of the early history of the venture capital industry is not documented. This is part 3 of a series. The (Lost) History of Venture Capital Venture Capital Took Decades to be Significant Arthur Rock helped invent Venture Capital The connection is that Arthur Rock was a student of Doriot, as was Thomas Davis. After...
I was born in the State of New Jersey, a few tens of miles from New York City. In the many years growing up there, I don’t once recall anyone ever comparing it to the original Jersey, nor anyone ever talking about visiting the Island of Jersey, which gave New Jersey its name. Then last September I was networking at an African investment conference in London and serendipitously met a fellow...
On today’s episode, Luni shares about how he grows impactful companies, his work with Fledge and Africa Eats (which is formed by the graduates of the Fledge program), and why storytelling is such an important skill for any entrepreneur. Key Actionable Advice 1. One can create impact with a company by embedding the mission into its products or solutions. Like Wholefoods, the mission to provide...
I found the following infographic on Twitter, and this should help the hundreds of thousands of first time entrepreneurs better understand how their 100% turns into what looks like a tiny 17.6% and yet is how some of them will someday end up millionaires. 100% of an idea is worth $050% of an idea-stage company is still worth $037% of a fundable company is worth something. Not much, but not $0.31%...
8 days into the new year, people are already telling me they are tired of summarizing 2020, so let’s skip that and talk about 2021. Happy 2021! With the new year I’ve taken a moment to not only think about my goals for the year but to think about all of the various activities and organizations I’m participating in. It appears I do a lot, but I actually have a narrow focus for my...
My last post critiqued the pros and cons of 2020 virtual conferences. This post focused on how these conferences could be so much better. Sweating the Details Online conferences are software products as much as events. For software, every click needs to be thought through and optimized, as does every button, every bit of text, and every bit of whitespace, as well as the layout of all the user...
Before 2020 a conference was an in-person gathering of hundreds or thousands of people and a webinar was an online gathering of dozens to hundreds. 2020 begins the new era of virtual/online conferences. What is the difference? Conferences serve two main purposes: knowledge sharing and relationship building. The online tools work differently for each of these. Knowledge Sharing The creators of...
I’ve been a fan of space travel for as long as I can remember. Some of that must come from being born a month before men first walked on the moon. Some from being a child when Star Wars came out and when the first Space Shuttle launched. I’ve been excited in recent years with the efforts of SpaceX and Blue Origin, each showing glimpses of man returning to “outer space”...
I learned a great lesson last week from a fellow teacher at Start.coop, the world’s first accelerator for co-ops, and it was applicable to every startup, cooperative or not… To think about your idea more abstractly, ask the question, “Why?” To think about your idea in more detail, ask, “How?” — For example, all my work is centered around entrepreneurs...
