Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 7)

SM: Tell me about some of the deals that you have done since coming into existence, and what is unique about them? BJ: Since we started Emergence we have had three IPOs. That is pretty good for a young firm. Obviously SalesForce.com was one. We also invested in a software provider in the Human Resources

Read Full Article »

Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 6)

SM: The surprising part of the story, one of the reasons I decided to cover it, is that I have not seen too many major trends in our industry in the Valley that all of the VCs did not run after. The venture industry is like lemmings. Everybody is running after the same trends. Someone

Read Full Article »

Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 5)

SM: What happened after you closed the fund? Did the thesis check out? What was happening in the marketplace, and how did you get your positioning and your thesis out there to solicit deals? BJ: SalesForce.com went public as we were closing our first fund, and that proved to be a home run for Emergence.

Read Full Article »

Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 4)

SM: Can you give some examples of companies using these subscription or transaction models? BJ: EBay and Travelocity are two. These are companies providing a service over the net to consumers but they are getting paid for the service. That was critical to us. SM: You had a bias towards subscription service versus advertising, which

Read Full Article »

Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 3)

SM: There was a piece of the services industry that is well known, which is consulting services. That is not what you have in mind when you say services. BJ: Correct. We are talking about technology companies that use their technology to provide a service and usually they are using a network to deliver that

Read Full Article »

Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 2)

SM: Even so, 2002 was not a great time to start a new fund. BJ: No, it was a horrible time to do that! SM: Tell me more about that experience. BJ: I knew a few VCs who had tried to raise a new fund in 2002, and most of them gave up. They concluded

Read Full Article »

Building a New Venture Firm: Brian Jacobs of Emergence Capital (Part 1)

Most Venture Capitalists that entrepreneurs work with these days have never been entrepreneurs themselves. They have not had to take substantial personal risks. They are used to cushy lifestyles, fat paychecks, and existing brands that their firms have built long before they came on board.

Building an Ambitious SaaS Company: Taleo CEO Michael Gregoire (Part 13)

SM: What is your take on the Street’s understanding of how to analyze SaaS companies. Why are SaaS companies down so much? MG: It is coming around. I think SaaS gets put in the same bucket as tech. Right now there is a lack of visibility and understanding of how the future is going to

Read Full Article »