I am an entrepreneur, angel investor, and early-stage VC living and working in New York City.
Well, that’s a wrap folks: after five years of fast growth, punishing price gouging, and Clinton-era internet access, the Web Summit will be swapping white pudding from Dublin for wood-fired seafood in Lisbon in 2016. Lets’ take a look at the good, bad, and…
So you have all your ‘soft commitments.’ Most potential investors have signed their docs. A few – but not most – have wired…and the deadline to close is coming in a few days. What do you do? Here are a few tips for how…
Business development is necessary but expensive, particularly for very early stage startups on a shoestring budget. So what are ways you can maximize your effectiveness on your trip? When maximizing every second on business development trips as an entrepreneur, I focus on three factors:…
The more I think about my reasons for investing, I find it often comes down to my reasons for not investing. Many founders I meet, through one action or the other, set off one of my tics that makes me check out and pass…
That $10 million Series A may be coming down the pipe soon, but until then you have to squeeze value from every penny. Having now experienced “startup business” travel for the last four years or so, I have some ultra cheap travel tips for…
The annual Midas List may be filled with the biggest name VCs, but I firmly believe that the strongest startups ubiquitously begin with ardent support from capable and helpful angel investors. Sadly, many current angel investors choose not to lift a finger to help…
History is doomed to repeat itself: just as the golden years of Silicon Valley 1.0 ended in horrifying fashion in the 2000-1 bust, the boom times of the 2010-2015 tech bubble will end very soon. Always listen to the naysayers but with a caveat:…
When you are an early stage startup, affordable attention can be hard to come by! Elite tech conferences, such as SXSW, Dublin Web, NYC Tech, and others represent an often underutilized opportunity to draw major attention to your company – without a major price…
Technology is now revolutionizing an industry that was long one of the most resistant to its wiles: the wonderful world of toys. Spurred by smart technology, interactive voice, and adaptive learning powered by IBM Watson, the newest toys have the potential to completely change…
Two of the most exciting trends of the 2000s, digital and hyperlocal, are now blending together in 2015, with an increasing number of apps, startups, and re-forming companies helping travelers use their tech tools to gain immediate local flavor and an enhanced experience while…
In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan announced that it was a “new morning in America.” It was also a new dawn for conservatism, dramatically shutting down the free love and sexual expression of the 1960s and 1970s. This, in turn meant that, through Web…
Despite its reputation for fast-talking entrepreneurs, fast-moving investors, and horror stories of angels left choking on the dust of others’ glory, the startup world is built, fundamentally, on an unwritten code of ethics. In a world where little is verifiable, real numbers are hard…
I think of myself as an Impact Investor. I think of myself that way because I clearly look for companies that are pursuing large, transformational opportunities with global implications. I don’t care about stage or sector, I care only about founder(s)’ quality and potential…
Back to the future? In the aftermath of the app revolution, its good old texting that has the capability of revolutionizing business and its communication with customers. When the iPhone came out, every business had to integrate with top applications or, better yet, have…
In several years of angel investing, one thing I have consistently noticed is the propensity for startups to start raises right around Thanksgiving, with the expectation of closing before Christmas. Although they sometimes succeed – and have a far highly likelihood of doing so…
“We’re not anti-police, we’re anti-police brutality,” said Reverend Al Sharpton; right at the center of the social litigation debate and one of the most gripping debates in the country today: the role of police in society. The technology world is wading into the battle:…
‘Work with purpose’ is an old phrase being given new meaning in today’s world, with a whole new class of technology devoted to helping people identify ways to create purpose-driven work and make them work better. The fascinating part is: the competing theories rarely…
