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.

Serial Entrepreneur: Taher Elgamal (Part 1)

Dr. Taher Elgamal is a tremendously successful and talented cryptographer turned entrepreneur. He is the designer of the ElGamal signature scheme which has served as the basis for the Digitial Signature Algorithm. He holds a doctorate degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. I had the pleasure of talking with Taher, discussing not only his background and past ventures, but what he is doing now and where he thinks the security market is at, and where it is likely to go.

SM: Taher, I would like to begin the interview by going back to your roots. You come from a background with a completely different cultural context where I imagine you were not exposed to entrepreneurial activities as we know it here in Silicon Valley. If you could connect some dots for us and tell us how you moved onto the path you are on today, that would be great. TE: Interesting question. I grew up in Cairo, obviously, and Cairo is an old civilization. Where I grew up was an interesting family collection because families in Egypt are collections of a lot of different things. It is true that one would not think of starting companies when you were 15 years old when you were growing up in Cairo, although nowadays that has changed. Back then, you tried to find the biggest government position you could. >>>

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Leadership Profile: Maggie Wilderotter (Part 1)

Maggie Wilderotter is the current CEO of Citizen Communications (CZN). Citizen is an industry leader in rural telecommunication services with 2006 revenues of $2B. It offers ILEC services under the Frontier name in the United States. I was introduced to Maggie as one of the most impressive women executives. [Bio]

SM: Let’s start with your background. Where do you come from, and what aspects of your youth do you think gave you the foundation for such an incredible career? MW: I grew up in New Jersey; I am one of four sisters. My father was an executive with AT&T in the Bell system throughout his career. My mom was a stay at home mom until we were in High School, then she became one of the top real estate agents in the state of New Jersey. I had a great childhood. As a family we were brought up, all four of us, to be very focused on education; I was taught that if you earned a college degree you then had freedom and flexibility to actually do whatever you wanted in life. My parents instilled discipline in us at a very early age. We were taught that hard work pays off, with a focus on “if you deliver your personal best, the world is your oyster”. I have had great success in my career which I really believe is based on a childhood where there were no limits placed on what I could accomplish. >>>

Enterprise 3.0 Collaboration: eProject (Part 1)

I have discussed a framework for Enterprise 3.0 recently, and wrote a few pieces to illustrate the Saas and Extended Enterprise trends that I deem as the drivers. Here is a company, eProject, and its CEO Jeff Pancottine, answering some of my clarifying questions. At the heels of Cisco’s Webex acquisition, this seems to me like a perfect small company to enhance their collaboration suite. >>>

The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 1)

Recently I talked with Raj Reddy (wiki bio here) about his thoughts in applying technology to education. To begin this series we review the theoretical foundation for his current work.

SM: Raj, I am really looking forward to having a discussion on what I would call strategy and policy in terms of broader use of technology to solve some of the open problems of humanity today, and you are one of the people who has thought endlessly about this over an incredible career. So, tell us, what are some of the nuggets of your thinking, particularly on education.

RR: There are many aspects of education that we need to think about, a lot that has been studied … millions of reports. One thing, about 20 years ago, that struck me dramatically, is an experiment that one of my senior colleagues, Herbert Simon did. He is not only a Nobel Prize winner (in economics), but he is one of the founders of artificial intelligence. He did an interesting experiment. >>>

Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 1)

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Jerry Rawls, the CEO and co-founder of Finisar, about his experiences during the past two decades. While technology companies are accustomed to volatile market places and constant change, Jerry guided Finisar through arguably the most volatile market environment in history.

In this interview he takes us through the strong days of the late 90’s with a peak market cap of nearly $5 billion, through the dotcom bubble burst where typical companies in the same market segment saw sales drop by 98% in under a year, to today where Finisar has been established as a strong global company and a leader in optical components. >>>

Serial Entrepreneur: HP Michelet (Part 1)

Next in our serial entrepreneur series is a fascinating interview with Norwegian entrepreneur, HP Michelet, who is Executive Chairman of Energy Recovery Inc, known more commonly as ERI. As you would expect, HP is a serial entrepreneur, involved with 8 different businesses from software to cleantech to – hold your breath – a cod farm, however in this interview we focus on his efforts and experiences with ERI. This interview provides insight into the process of starting a company from the viewpoint of a venture capitalist, who later on became hands-on under situational demands. In part 1 HP provides an overview of ERI. >>>

Serial Entrepreneur: Philippe Courtot (Part 1)

In this next iteration of the Serial Entrepreneur series, I had a rather long interview with Philippe Courtot. He is an exceptionally driven and talented individual, and also brings a tremendous amount of successful experience to this series. In what will likely be one of the longest interviews in this series, Philippe really gives us incredible insight into being a successful individual and entrepreneur. We start in this first section by talking about his childhood, to see where the roots of entrepreneurship come from. >>>

Serial Entrepreneur: Manoj Saxena (Part 1)

Our Serial Entreprenuer series continues with a fascinating interview with Manoj Saxena. In this first segment we explore his background up to the point of his first venture.

SM: Where did you grow up?
MS: I grew up in India. A city called Hyderabad most of my life and then we were down in Bombay.

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Serial Entrepreneur: Peng Ong (Part 1)

Here is an interview with Peng Ong, the first in a new Serial Entrepreneurial series. This series will highlight those entrepreneurs who have repeatedly been able to come up with innovative ideas for new ventures, been successful in their endeavors, and also failed, but most importantly, have taken in their stride a certain way of life that includes risk and experimentation. We focus, here, on not only the businesses which they have created but the processes they followed.

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