One of the biggest mistakes I see junior investors make, particularly when they come from a purely financial background, is they look at numbers in early stage companies as points, or as simple trend lines. I don’t think this works. In the early stages, so much is changing that the numbers don’t tell you that […]
Category Archives: Investing
Can Venture Capitalists Be Helpful? Should They?
There is a new “VC Burn Book” going around where founders blast VCs who they feel treated them poorly. This is the kind of thing that crops up from time to time, and I understand why. My single worst experience as an entrepreneur was when a west coast VC, less than 10 minutes into my […]
The CUP Theory of AI Defensibility For Services As Software Business Models
I’ve written a bit about “services as software,” one of the models I like best in a world of AI. The gist of the model is that you take a services business where humans used to provide the service and you either use robotics ( if it’s a physical service) or algorithms (if it’s a […]
The Half Court Ventures Story: What I’ve Learned From 4 Years of Angel Investing
Backupify was acquired in December of 2014. In June of 2015 I made my first angel investment. Along the way, I started a fund with my friend Todd Earwood, and learned a lot about investing. This post chronicles that path. Deciding To Angel Invest The first thing I did post exit was talk to lots […]