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Perspectives on entrepreneurship, startups and venture capital from K9 Ventures.

Tag Archives: founders

Stealth is Overrated

“US Navy Sea Shadow stealth craft” by US Navy employee – http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/ships/ship-sea.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons. I’ve tweeted this before… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Stealth is overrated. Startups should use every opportunity to get their name out. — Manu Kumar (@ManuKumar) May 29, 2010 …and I’ve said it […]

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The Seeds Have Changed: An Epilogue

  Note: This is a long post and it’s based on reflecting on a couple of years of observations in the venture industry. It’s a work-in-progress and I expect to update (last update 10 June) and refine the content, especially in the next week as I prepare for a talk I’m giving at the PreMoney […]

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The problem with getting an MBA

I was reading Dan Primack‘s Term Sheet this morning and saw the part about Chamath Palihapitiya making waves at HBS by telling current MBA candidates that “the overwhelming majority of us would not look favorably on a company started by one of you.” Chamath is correct in making that statement, especially if you’re careful to […]

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The Curse of Over-Capitalization

For VCs money is a commodity. VCs also operate in a limited time window. Now, combine those two motivations that venture investors have: 1) ownership, 2) quick growth, and what do you get? You get a situation whether investors are incentivized to put in more money into a company, not only to buy more equity, but also to fund the quick growth. In fact, it becomes a vicious circle. First, a company may get encouraged to raise more money that it really needs, just so that the venture fund can get to it’s desired level of ownership. Then the same company gets encouraged to spend that money to accelerate and to grow quickly, which in turn means it runs out of that money more quickly, and then needs to raise even more money.

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Ideas Matter

The idea is the seed. It is the kernel that is the start of something new.
Ideas are powerful because they invade the mind. Once you are introduced to an idea, you cannot get it out of your head.
Ideas are what provide that little twist of ingenuity that can make or break a company.
Sometimes ideas are not revolutionary, but they get the ball rolling and without them, that wouldn’t happened. The best ideas are often simple ones. Maybe that is what a revolutionary idea is — an idea so simple that it sparks a revolution.

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Stanford Roundtable discussion on US Immigration Policy #startupvisa

On Saturday, October 24th, Stanford University hosted the Stanford Roundtable. The renowned interviewer Charlie Rose moderated a discussion titled: ‘The Road Back: From Economic Meltdown to Renewal’.  The archived webcast video is available on iTunes and on YouTube. At one point in the discussion Charlie Rose asked about the education system. President Hennessey remarked that: “We depend at the graduate level […]

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