Disqus - Latest Comments for slieberman

Re: Bijan Sabet

Seth Lieberman — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 12:42:06 -0000

Yep- got it. There's something special and beautiful about prints/collections that are personal- and not conveyed in digital the same.

Re: Bijan Sabet

Seth Lieberman — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 10:50:23 -0000

Bijan- Awesome. Why don't you self-publish them in some way shape or form and sell them with proceeds to charity. I'll buy a subscription.

Re: Highlights From My Panel At The Marketo Summit

Seth Lieberman — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 16:23:05 -0000

Great recap JD- and I agree great participation from the audience with good challenges and questions.

Re: 4 Dirty Secrets VCs Won’t Admit

Seth Lieberman — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 13:21:19 -0000

#5 Many VCs will take a meeting with you even when they have no intention or interest in investing in your company. Mostly they are looking to:

1. Educate themselves about your market because they don't really know it even if they profess to invest in it.

2. Gain insights into their current investments or current deals even if not competitive.

3. Junior people's job is to take meetings.

Re: 5 Reasons to Invest in Interactive Content

Seth Lieberman — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 10:37:42 -0000

Dennis- great post, and I couldn't agree more. We consistently see SnapApp customers building robust interactive experiences on our platform that drive phenomenal value for both the user and the marketer. A significant number of our Marketo customers are building very cool calculators, interactive white papers and interactive infographics as well as assessments. Good stuff.

Re: Interactive Content Generates 2x More Conversions Than Passive Content

Seth Lieberman — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 17:27:19 -0000

Jean- Great post and I couldn't agree more. At SnapApp we see time and time again that marketers who build interactive content to have dialogues with their audience deliver dramatically more value for the user and for themselves. That builds trust, credibility and ultimately wins business.

Re: Feature Friday: fredwilson.fm

Seth Lieberman — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 21:00:09 -0000

Found this awesome hack for SoundCloud + Sonos integration http://inburst.io/soundclou... . Now "channeling" Fred into my house.

Re: Feature Friday: fredwilson.fm

Seth Lieberman — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 10:06:47 -0000

Any way to build a spotify playlist that automatically updates with new tracks?

Re: Fun Feature Friday: Embeddable Media In The Comments

Seth Lieberman — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 08:30:09 -0000

Makes the comments far more media driven than the post itself.

Re: Valuation vs Ownership

Seth Lieberman — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 09:46:30 -0000

Fred- Saying "great post" is like calling your talk radio station and asking "how you doing" as your first comment, but great post.

Implicit assumptions:

1. Capital is always available (it is not).

2. A smaller amount of money will be sufficient to gain traction for another (higher) round. Capital efficient/Lean or not, some business simply take more money to get off the ground (eg B2B).

3. Raising money is easy and not a distraction for the CEO and the business (I know you don't think this).

Sometimes it is better to raise more, take the dilution and the piece of mind and get back to work- you may end up with a bigger exit for all.

Re: Feature Friday: Quotes

Seth Lieberman — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:25:31 -0000

"The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn't move, kick it until it does." -Phil Woosnam

This feels like StartUp life to me :)

Re: When Things Don't Work Out

Seth Lieberman — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:01:04 -0000

Yes but, yes but. Could you get a 20x instead of a 10x with the A companies with more focus? A's don't "need" your time, but could you add more value if you spent the time?

Re: When Things Don't Work Out

Seth Lieberman — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:06:23 -0000

As managers the goal is spend more time with the "A" players, fire the "C" players and move the "B" players up or out. The classic mistake, which is easy to make, is to spend all your time with the "C" players trying to fix them. Fred- if you approach your portfolio the same way how do you think you have allocated your efforts, time and money against A,B and C (from an IRR perspective) and do you see any differences?

Re: I’ve been served! That said, I’m hopeful it will...

Seth Lieberman — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:03:01 -0000

With all due respect to my peers on this thread I think much of these are tactical points- not strategic solutions. Boston (as a metro area) needs a better strategy. Parking, the T, rent, visas (national not local) and the weather (ok- stuck on that one) are only minor issues. All of these (other than sunshine) are exactly the same in Silicon Valley where cost of living is thru the roof and traffic is brutal. Everyone on this thread plays to win- and so do most entrepreneurs and we'll put up with snow, and crowded apartments and countless headaches to prove the nay sayers wrong.

Insert Willie Sutton: "Go where the money is...and go there often." The reason so many young entrepreneurs head west and repeat entrepreneurs stay there is the culture around money raising and the massive amount of capital. Money is the huge differentiator. We tout our colleges and our intellectual capital (and it is substantial) but we all have backed or supported folks who didn't go "A schools" or never graduated- and they have been walk-off home runs. If we want to shift the Boston tech curve we need more capital to flow faster and easier- we need to change the culture and perception around raising money in Boston- seed, A and growth.

Before I get flamed (though dissenting opinons always welcome)- this is no indictment on any of us, and folks on this list are doing all the right stuff, we just need way more. We know the coaching line from the Board- what made you a successful $1M company is not what it will take to get you to $10M- let alone $100M. What got us to the very real level of success we have today in the startup scene needs a lot of amplification if we hope to grow exponentially not linearly. In my mind money makes all these problems more or less go away.

Re: Venture Capital Returns

Seth Lieberman — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:16:37 -0000

No one who is paying attention would say generating high returns for LPs is easy. I think the other side of the coin is generating high returns for fund managers who based on fund size, partners etc (yes many parameters) can leverage the 2/20 structure to make million dollar incomes while generating sub par returns. That, I believe, is mixed up in the "VC is easy" commentary.

Re: A Post Startup Execs Should Forward to Your Spouse or Partner. 12 Tips for Making it Work

Seth Lieberman — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:41:57 -0000

Behind every start-up CEO is an equally hard working start-up spouse. You have partners at work and partners at home.

Re: Fun Friday: Favorite Productivity Hack

Seth Lieberman — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:07:22 -0000

far far exceeds for dead simple capture and share. Skitch is miserable these days- but allows for annotation. With gyazo I hot key to launch- drag the area it automatically uploads and copies the url into my clipboard.

Re: Fun Friday: Favorite Productivity Hack

Seth Lieberman — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 08:40:52 -0000

Gyazo for ultra-fast screen shot and share.

Re: In Between: The Tough Place To Be

Seth Lieberman — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:04:50 -0000

Why do you think this is the case? Risk/reward ratios would seem to indicate that a true Seria A or Series B should be the sweet spot for investing. Early folks have taken on huge risk (and been rewarded with larger equity) to get through proof of concept to viable business. Late stage has much higher probability of success but at lower expected return- we all know these days late stage prices can be astronomical.

It seems like there should be strong demand to invest in companies that have shed 1-2 levels of risk and proven market and demand and therefore have high expected future value but still at a stage where a VC can obtain enough equity at a reasonable price to produce a great return. The only thing I can see in the market for the dearth of these folks is that possibly valuations at this level are impacting the return a VC can make compared to their equity stake and the size he/she thinks the business can achieve, thereby skewing risk/return ratio and making these investments not attractive. Go early/big and flame out or go late big and low risk do seem the biggest games in town...but *something* doesn't add up.

Re: The Valuable Unsung Heroes of Startups

Seth Lieberman — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 09:16:34 -0000

Without question there are lots of contributors that are behind the curtain and deserve credit- nothing is ever really a solo act. But the people that deserve top billing far and away are the spouses, family and significant others of entrepreneurs. It is their fundamental emotional support, time and event financial support that enables an entrepreneur to throw caution to the wind and risk all. Without the shoulders of my wife, family and friends running startups would be undoable- and these folks, unlike all the other's listed are *unpaid* (yes if I gain, my wife gains financially I know).

It's not that the white collar team doesn't also deserve credit for a success (obviously they do) but the ones who often deserve the most credit are dismissed at cocktail parties as uninteresting- and that's wrong and bullshit.

Re: The Right Question(s) to Ask VCs about Their Availability of Capital

Seth Lieberman — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 09:07:22 -0000

Yes, I think that is right. End of fund lifecycle manifests itself in lots of ways.

Re: The Right Question(s) to Ask VCs about Their Availability of Capital

Seth Lieberman — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:04:53 -0000

David- Good comments- the one other trend I have seen lately (perhaps driven by current economic uncertainty) is that firms as they enter the last ~25% of capital in a fund are becoming more conservative. Instead of just taking a couple more shots with their existing investment thesis they are looking for the last couple investments to be slightly further along and a bit more de-risked.

Re: Would the Last Blackberry User Please Turn Out the Lights? I Already Left the Building

Seth Lieberman — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 15:38:40 -0000

Oh, it's the the input/output methodology. The overall experience of slow email push to your iphone and only 5 years later you can have separate signatures...Apple doesn't get email. Compare to gmail on and android device- seamless and fast.

Re: Would the Last Blackberry User Please Turn Out the Lights? I Already Left the Building

Seth Lieberman — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 13:36:53 -0000

yes, yes and yes, BUT what does the iphone suck the most at? email.

Re: The Flow and The Balance

Seth Lieberman — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 08:32:10 -0000

Great sales driven organizations know that while your "commission check" is your P&L your pipeline is your balance sheet.