No Angel Secrets in the Valley After All

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:27:37 +0000

The biggest buzz on the Internet yesterday was Michael Arringtons’ post regarding a secret meeting involving ten of the most important VCs found in the Valley. Rumors flew fast. Speculation surrounded every word written. The people involved in the meeting were condemned before we even knew who they were. Yet, a few of us were skeptic. As I thought over the situation and wrote about it last night, I chose to stay on the high side of the road. After all, I wasn’t invited to the dinner either. I have no idea what the hell went on, any more than Mike himself. However, Dave McClure WAS there. And he’s decided to fill you all in on a few of their secrets.

You may not want to read Dave’s article if cursing offends you. He lays all of his cards right on the table for everyone to see. Much like Arrington himself, McClure pulls no punches. He tells it exactly like it is… whether you like it or not. As Dave points out, there are no conspiracy theories amongst the Valley VCs. There’s nothing screwy going on behind the closed doors. There is nothing for us to worry our pretty little investigative heads over at all.

at the dinner, there was a fair amount of kvetching about convertible notes, capped or not, hi/lo valuation, optimal structure of term sheets, where the industry was headed, who was innovating and who wasn’t, and 10 million other things of which 3 were kind of interesting and 9,999,997 weren’t unless you like arguing about 409a stock option pricing.

however, in addition to pricing & valuation, some of the more interesting things discussed were how can we increase access to startup capital (new geographies, new investors, Second Market, etc)… how can we increase M&A for startups & increase awareness of startups for non-tech acquirers… how can we increase startup innovation (more smart entrepreneurs, cool new platforms, better techniques for mentoring / entrepreneurship).

I don’t know about you, but I happen to think that these guys sitting down and talking through things such as these is a damn fine idea. They aren’t competing with each other. They aren’t trying to screw over anyone. They are simply putting their heads together to figure out a way to make things better in the startup and VC world.

That, my friends, is a beautiful thing to see. Collaboration – it’s what the world needs more of!

How not to Pitch Venture Capitalists

Chris Pirillo — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 05:48:50 +0000

As more social bookmarking and tagging sites (like Technorati or del.icio.us) come online, it will become increasingly important to unveil results from all of them on a single page. TagJag has been doing this from day one, and more search providers are added on a regular basis. Steve Rubel, in his blog post titled ‘Search the Universe, Not Just the Galaxies,’ says: “There’s gold to be had for the provider that can scale to include every major social network. I would bank on folks like TagJag.”

Click to Play

How do you know who’s really talking about you on the Internet? Who’s linking to your blog? Relying on one or two services for that information will never give you the full picture. For a comprehensive set of results, TagJag can’t be beat. Google doesn’t list everything. Moreover, having to search multiple sites with the same keyword is tiresome and repetitive. TagJag gives the user everything in one shot – and instantly allows them to access the various RSS feeds for those searches.

Other Media Downloads: FLV | MP3

Chris Pirillo » vc

No Angel Secrets in the Valley After All

How not to Pitch Venture Capitalists