The Startup Velocity Question: What Hinders Acceleration in VC Funded Companies?

I have been running 1Mby1M since 2010. I find myself saying to entrepreneurs ad nauseam that VCs want to invest in startups that can go from zero to $100 million in revenue in 5 to 7 years.

Startups that do not have what it takes to achieve velocity should not be venture funded.

Experienced VCs, over time, have developed heuristics to gauge what constitutes a high growth venture investment thesis. 

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Bootstrapping

Over the course of two years, we have released over 70 courses on Udemy with the aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally. This series of posts aims to help you find the one you need easily and provide you with discount coupons.

Hollywood’s Content Crisis: Robert McKee (Part 1)

The Guardian has called Robert McKee the “most influential storytelling theorist since Aristotle.” As a screenwriting instructor, he has taught students as illustrious as John Lasseter of Pixar and Akiva Goldsman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “A Beautiful Mind”, “The Da Vinci Code” and other films. For over 15 years, his Story Seminar has been the ultimate writing class for over 50,000 screenwriters, filmmakers, TV writers, novelists, industry executives, actors, producers, directors, and playwrights.

I took this class in July. This interview was recorded in September. If you have any aspiration to write for film, I highly recommend the seminar. I invited Bob to discuss the business of film with me, and it helped me gain clarity on a number of issues.

SM: Box offices have seen a surge in movie tickets sales as it looks as though people are going to the movies more during the recession. At the same time, there is a story crisis in Hollywood films. We see a lot of the same stories repeatedly. Why is storytelling facing a crisis?

RM: I agree with you. From the Hollywood point of view there is no story problem. It is not in crisis. They are making a lot of money and they are happy to do that. >>>

Featured Videos

Teaching 50,000 Students Online: APEI CEO Wally Boston (Part 1)

Wally is the CEO and president of American Public University System and its parent company American Public Education, Inc (APEI). He is also a member of the West Virginia Governor’s Advisory Council for Technology in Education. He is a CPA, CMA and Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. He earned a BA from Duke and an MBA from Tulane.

SM: Wally, take us back to where your story begins. Give us some personal background to set the stage for your career.

WB: I grew up on the eastern shore of Maryland, which is a very rural area. In seventh grade I had the good fortune to get an academic scholarship to a boarding school. >>>

A Public University’s Online Journey: Hunt Lambert of CSU (Part 1)

Hunt Lambert is the Associate Provost of Continuing Education at Colorado State University and CEO of CSU Global Campus. Hunt is the former director of the Colorado State University Entrepreneurship Center and a faculty member of the College of Business. During his businesses career he was part of 25 startups. He teaches strategy and business plan development in the school’s MBA program. He has helped another 15 startups since he joined CSU seven years ago, including Solix Biofuels, EnviroFit, Abound (AVA) Solar, Keen Foods and AML.

SM: Hunt, let’s start with your background before we get to the Colorado story.

HL: I was born with an entrepreneurial spirit and started doing things on my own at a very young age. I worked as a bartender in the Caribbean at age 13. In the summer I would buy old cars, fix them, and re-sell them. >>>

Buying and Selling Online Schools: The Unusual Career of Michael Clifford (Part 1)

SM: Take us back to your beginning to give us some context about who you are.

MC: I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. My father was a musician and started a radio station, so I grew up around a radio station and music. I never went to college and yet went on to be a catalyst for and founder of six universities. >>>

From Non-profit To IPO: The Turnaround Of Grand Canyon University: Brent Richardson (Part 1)

Brent Richardson is the executive chairman of the board for Grand Canyon University. He joined GCU in 2003 as the CEO and led the transformation of a near-bankrupt university into an IPO success story. Prior to GCU, he was the founder of multiple companies and CEO of Masters Online. In his early career, he gained a background in sales working for Prescription Learning, a company founded by his father.

SM: First, let’s cover your background before Grand Canyon University. Where do you come from and what kind of career path did you follow?

BR: I have been in the education space for over 20 years. In 1987, I started a company called Educational Management Group. We were doing distance education to K-12 schools through satellite at the time. >>>

Teaching K-12 Math Online: Reasoning Mind CEO Alex Khachatryan (Part 1)

SM: Let’s start with a bit of your history. Where do you come from?

AK: I am from the former Soviet Union. I was born and raised in Moscow and immigrated to the United States in 1990. have lived here ever since. >>>

The Long Road to Edutainment: Tabula Digita CEO Ntiedo Etuk (Part 1)

Ntiedo Etuk is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Electrical Engineering. He also holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he was a Beta Gamma Sigma graduate. He has managed the creation, implementation and analysis of various consumer products for Bank One and Citigroup. With Citigroup he was selected to work directly with the Chief of Staff to Citigroup’s president, Bob Willumstad. Ntiedo left Citigroup in April of 2004 to focus on Tabula Digita full time.

SM: Let’s start with your background. Where does your journey begin?

NE: I was born in Nigeria. My father is Nigerian and my mother is from the Bahamas. They met in Canada. From day one I was brought up with a sense and the expectation that I would do more for the community. >>>

Venture Capital in China: David Chao of DCM (Part 1)

David Chao is the co-founder and general partner of DCM. He has been active in the information technology industry since the 1980s. At DCM, he guides portfolio companies in formulating corporate and product marketing strategies, developing strong management teams and implementing domestic and international partnerships.

SM: Let’s start by talking about your background. What experiences have shaped your thought processes?

DC: I am ethnically Chinese. I was born and raised in Japan. By definition I am a Chinese/Japanese, but I came here for high school and college, and did work between college and business school in both Japan and Asia. I am a product of three cultures. I am a Chinese/Japanese/American. >>>

Driving Solar Growth Through Financing: SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive (Part 1)

Lyndon Rive co-founded SolarCity with his brother in July 2006. In its first three years, SolarCity became the largest residential solar power provider in California and grew to over 350 employees serving over 500 communities in three states. Prior to SolarCity, Lyndon founded Everdream, an industry leader in software and services for large-scale distributed computer management. A lifelong entrepreneur, Lyndon founded his first company at the age of 17 in South Africa, and in his spare time he has been a member of the U.S. National Underwater Hockey Team.

SM: Lyndon, where is your accent from?

LR: I was born and raised in Victoria, South Africa. >>>

Pioneering Real-time Computing: TIBCO CEO Vivek Ranadivé (Part 1)

Vivek Ranadivé founded TIBCO in 1985. He is also the author of the New York Times business bestseller “The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-time Technology” (McGraw-Hill, 1999). He was one of InfoWorld’s 2002 Top Ten Technology Innovators and was recognized by Ernst & Young as a 2002 Software Entrepreneur of the Year.

Prior to founding TIBCO, Vivek founded a UNIX consulting company. Prior to that, he held management and engineering positions with Ford Motor Company, M/A-COM Linkabit and Fortune Systems. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He received both master’s and bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

SM: Vivek, where does your story begin? Where did you grow up and what was the environment like?

VR: My story begins in Bombay and yes, I still call it Bombay. >>>