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.

Portaga’s TripSync: Simplifying Business Travel (Part 1)

Continuing on our coverage of the Online Travel industry, I bring you Portaga, a small private company that is working on simplifying the challenges of booking and changing travel plans from within your calendar, desktop or mobile. Here, we speak with Portaga’s CEO Robert Kost.

SM: Please describe your business value proposition and your product.
RK: TripSync is the free, Web 2.0 travel tool that allows business travelers to book, change and manage travel directly from their calendar with a few simple clicks. TripSync simplifies, organizes and synchronizes business travel for one or multiple travelers by creating live data itineraries right in Outlook. TripSync makes creating or changing travel plans as easy as scheduling a meeting. Designed with an inherent understanding of how small and medium sized companies work, TripSync was developed by veteran business travelers at Portaga, Inc., a web services company based in White Plains, NY.
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Featured Videos

Rolling up an Online Ad Agency Powerhouse: AKQA CEO Tom Bedecarre (Part 1)

Tom Bedecarre is the CEO of AKQA, an award winning, privately held ad agency with roots in San Francisco. Tom provided a fascinating interview, and a really good discussion about the emergence of new media and how it shifts the power balance in the advertising marketplace. As is customary, we begin the interview by learning something about his background.

SM: I would like to begin with a bit of your background. Where did you grow up, what was your early career like? TB: I am a Bay Area native. My great grandfather came to San Francisco, so my family has been in the area a long time. >>>

Salesforce.com’s Incubator: René Bonvanie (Part 1)

René Bonvanie is Senior Vice President and General Manager, AppExchange and Developer Marketing at Salesforce.com. Rene has responsibility for the marketing and strategic direction of the AppExchange on-demand platform and developer marketing through the ApppExchange Developer Network. AppExchange is a novel new business strategy which allows SalesForce to develop symbiotic relationships with established and emerging companies while simultaneously gaining access into new markets. In this interview, we specifically drill down into Salesforce.com’s recently launched AppExchange Incubator program.

SM: Rene, I would like to start our conversation by talking about your background and history. RB: I am the General Manager and Senior Vice President of AppExchange, the developer relations at SalesForce.com, and I have been in the hi-tech industry for the last 24 years.

SM: Where are you from originally? RB: I am a Dutch citizen. I am from Holland. I worked half of my professional career in Europe. I was involved in two companies there, Ingress and Oracle. I spent about 8 years with Ingres, and about 11 years with Oracle. I moved to the Bay area about 11 years ago and I spent a number of years with Oracle. I then went on to be the Chief Marketing Officer at Veritas and Business Objects, and I spent a little bit of time with SAP before joining SalesForce.com in January 2007. >>>

Retrevo’s Vertical Search: Before and After

According to Vipin Jain, CEO, Retrevo “is a web service that helps consumers with shopping and support of tech products. Retrevo is your trusted advisor throughout the lifecycle ownership of tech products, from education, research, deals, price comparison, getting the best out of the products you bought, accessorizing, using, fixing issues to servicing your products. Retrevo is the only company that helps consumers before and after“. [You can read Vipin’s interview here to get the business story of this company.]

The Before is obvious, and similar to what we have seen in Wize and TheFind. You look for a product, research features, shop for the best prices, and make a final buying decision. It is the After that I find interesting in the case of Retrevo, which is also their key differentiator. >>>

Retrevo’s Vipin Jain on Vertical Search (3)

SM: Who financed the company at the very beginning?
VJ: Ammar Hanafi @ Alloy Ventures seed funded in Feb 2006.

SM: Did you raise Angel money? How much? From whom?
VJ: Three founders bootstrapped the company with $150K cash.

SM: Did you raise Venture money? How much? From whom?
VJ: Total $3.9M venture money raised from Norwest Venture Partners and Alloy Ventures. >>>

Retrevo’s Vipin Jain on Vertical Search (2)

SM: How big is the market for what you have to offer? (TAM analysis is essentially what I am looking for here … )
VJ: $1B-$1.5B. Assume a conservative $25B online spending out of a total of $150B CE spending in the US. Assume 4%-5% of the total online spend in referral. TAM is much larger if you consider the bridge between online research (75% of consumers research their products online) and offline purchases (and how to build that bridge). >>>

Retrevo’s Vipin Jain on Vertical Search (1)

A Vertical Search engine called Retrevo has come up a few times in our coverage of the Gadget Geeks segment. Here, I interview the CEO, Vipin Jain.

SM: Please describe your business value proposition and your product.
VJ: Retrevo is a web service that helps consumers with shopping and support of tech products. Retrevo is your trusted advisor throughout the lifecycle ownership of tech products, from education, research, deals, price comparison, getting the best out of the products you bought, accessorizing, using, fixing issues to servicing your products. Retrevo is the only company that helps consumers “before and after”. >>>

Om Malik: Pioneering Blogs (Part 1)

Om Malik is a successful writer, reporter and has been entrepreneurial in many ways. He is also one of the pioneers of the blogging phenomena with GigaOm. Om has been a close friend of mine for many years, and was responsible for getting me into blogging. Today, he is one of first bloggers, along with Michael Arrington of Techcrunch and Rafat Ali of Paidcontent to have monetized blogs in a significant way. >>>

Story of an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Raj Vaswani (Part 1)

Raj Vaswani is currently the Chief Technology Officer with Silver Spring Networks. Equally as important and interesting for my audience is that he also has completed an Entrepreneur-in-Residence program with Foundation Capital. While I did discuss his overall background, as well as his role in founding Silver Spring Networks, Raj also provided some good insights into the Entrepreneur-in-Residence programs, also know as EIR. >>>

Social Entrepreneur: Harish Hande (Part 1)

Dr. Harish Hande is the co-founder of Selco, a rural sustainable energy company which has over 80,000 installations and 25 retail sales and service centers all over Karnataka, a state in Southern India. Among its many accomplishments, Selco has created India’s first rural solar financing program using regional banks. I recently talked with Harish about the development of Selco and his journey as a remarkably committed social entrepreneur. >>>