Hatcher+ Blog

The Golden (Selection) Ratio

John Sharp - Wednesday, May 29, 2019 - Views: 2,118

When we decided we wanted to determine what selection ratio we should adopt - i.e. how many deals we should fund out of every thousand in order to create a 1,350 company portfolio for our H2 fund, it was obvious where to look. Show All...

The Time-Traveling VC

John Sharp - Monday, May 27, 2019 - Views: 416

Equities traders have always been on the cutting edge of technology. Since the invention of the telegraph and the laying of the Trans-Atlantic Cable in the 1800s, traders have always understood that knowledge is power - and that in order to profit from that power, you need to be able to do two things: obtain access to the knowledge faster than anyone else, and have the ability to act on that knowledge in the fastest way possible. Show All...

We Created a Venture ETN - Here's Why

John Sharp - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - Views: 2,676

A few months ago, we officially launched the Hatcher+ Venture ETN (Exchange-Traded Note) - a publicly-tradable security designed to enable family offices, HNWs, and corporate VCs an easier way to invest into venture. We launched it after a series of extremely enjoyable lunchtime workshops with leading asset managers and fin-tech influencers in Beirut, Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, and Zurich. Here's a summary of those discussions - and the key reasons why we added a Venture ETN to our arsenal: Show All...

The Crane's Neck - Using Data To Improve Startup Portfolio Construction

John Sharp - Thursday, February 28, 2019 - Views: 7,565

One of the myths that persists about investing in startups is that little useful data is available at the earliest stages of a startup. Based on our analysis of tens of thousands of early-stage companies, and our continuing detailed analysis of thousands of early-stage deals every month from multiple co-investment partners and users of our BPA platform around the world, we would beg to differ. Show All...

8 Easy Places To Start Up

John Sharp - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - Views: 1,110

The UK is getting a lot of bad press lately because of Brexit - which tends to overshadow the fact that the UK is ranked by the World Bank as the least costly place to start a business (along with Slovenia), and the 8th easiest country to do business with in the world, after New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong, Korea, the Republic of Georgia, Norway, and the US. Show All...

Your Startup Should be in an Accelerator

John Sharp - Monday, February 11, 2019 - Views: 884

Graduates of accelerator programs are increasingly showing up in unicorn lists and data is increasingly available that shows these companies are raising more money - and surviving and thriving longer - than non-accelerated startups. So how hard is it to get accepted into a leading accelerator program? The answers may surprise you. Show All...

Is Unicorn Hunting a Good Strategy?

John Sharp - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - Views: 5,022

I just landed in Dubai from Helsinki, where I heard (and overheard) any number of pitches from startups attending the SLUSH event. What interested me most was overhearing the investors. From their questions, it quite quickly would become clear what type of investor they were - a government entity, an ex-entrepreneur, a unicorn hunter, a financial investor... and that got me thinking - how many investors really understand their motivation for investing? How many are honest with themselves about their mandate? And how many *really* want to make money? Show All...

Hatcher+ is Investing in One New Startup Every Day

John Sharp - Friday, October 5, 2018 - Views: 4,615

Last month, we invested in one new startup every day - a rate that now ranks us as the most active venture investor in the world (or at the very least, among the top three.) These deals include some of the best new startups to be found anywhere. We're planning on keeping up this rate of investment for the next three years, using a staff of less than ten people. How is this possible? Show All...

How Many Millionaires?

John Sharp - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - Views: 2,080

Last night, I watched a video presented by Richard Wilson, CEO of the Family Office Club, that I thought did a very good job of covering many of the core, operational and deal flow management problems faced by family offices. Show All...

The AI-Powered, Highly-Automated, Global-Diversified, Exchange-Tradable VC

John Sharp - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - Views: 10,894

After a year and a half of positioning ourselves as "data driven venture investment", we've decided it's time to update the way we communicate the strategy behind Hatcher+. "Data-driven venture investment" misses three of our four core strategies, and doesn't capture the scale of what our model is capable of. So, we've come up with a new slogan: "The AI-powered, highly-automated, global diversified, exchange-tradable VC. Show All...

The Next Generation of Family Office Investors Has Arrived

John Sharp - Wednesday, May 23, 2018 - Views: 802

Today's family offices are investing in venture capital deals at an exponentially growing rate... Show All...

Venture Capital Simplified - The Rule of 5X

John Sharp - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - Views: 13,126

For many people starting their first startup, venture capital is like some kind of "black box" that operates according to frustrating, sometimes complex rules that are designed for industry insiders, not first-time entrepreneurs... Show All...

The Four "Hows" - What Investors Need to Hear

John Sharp - Saturday, March 31, 2018 - Views: 2,633

Investors that are active in VC have already made the decision to allocate capital to that area... Show All...

How to Create a Killer Demo Day

John Sharp - Sunday, March 11, 2018 - Views: 2,217

The process of selecting startups gets a lot of focus when talking about accelerators - and deservedly so... Show All...

Is Your VC Intelligent?

John Sharp - Saturday, February 17, 2018 - Views: 3,748

If you're a venture capitalist reading this headline, please take a moment and check your gut reaction to the question being posed here... Show All...

Hatcher H2: The World's First Exchange-Tradable, Early-Stage VC Fund

John Sharp - Saturday, January 27, 2018 - Views: 2,434

Two days from now, the world's first early-stage, globally-focused, exchange-tradable VC fund will be open for business - I'm talking of course about our very own Hatcher+ H2 fund, which will list on the Euronext (Amsterdam) and Wiener Bourse exchang... Show All...

Right Now is THE Best Time Ever to be a Startup

John Sharp - Tuesday, January 16, 2018 - Views: 1,848

Yesterday, we put out an announcement about a data-sharing partnership we're building with Funderbeam, an emerging blockchain-powered exchange, that we expect will result in a new way for startups to find funding... Show All...

Buying Ethereum - The Five Minute Guide

John Sharp - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - Views: 2,904

Six months ago, when Bitcoin was trading at US$2,150 or thereabouts, I was attending a conference in Seoul when an economist/fund manager named Mark Yusko made a bullish statement in an otherwise bearish sea of predictions around global asset valu... Show All...

Stop Sweating the BIG Stuff

John Sharp - Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - Views: 3,350

One question I get asked a lot on investor panels these days is "what makes a great CEO?" To me, the answer is simple: the best CEOs make sure that investors are never, ever surprised - by the Big Stuff... Show All...

Reinventing Venture Capital

John Sharp - Tuesday, October 17, 2017 - Views: 2,369

Venture capitalists are experts when it comes to scaling... Show All...

The New Rules of Fundraising

John Sharp - Saturday, September 23, 2017 - Views: 3,978

This week at SLUSH Singapore, I gave a presentation on the New Rules of Fundraising - how entrepreneurs can prepare for the new, data-driven startup ecosystem powered by AI-based engines such as HAL (YCombinator) and DART (Hatcher) ... Show All...

Singapore Has Over 100 VC Firms - and USD500Mn in Dry Powder

John Sharp - Saturday, September 2, 2017 - Views: 5,601

Hatcher+ has done a lot of analysis on startup ecosystems in various places around the world during the past two years... Show All...

Killer Robots Are Already Here

John Sharp - Monday, August 21, 2017 - Views: 1,373

This week, Elon Musk and the heads of a number of technology companies warned against the development and deployment of ''killer robots''... Show All...

The Economics of Hope and Dreams

John Sharp - Saturday, August 12, 2017 - Views: 1,290

I listened to a BBC Radio interview today with Mary Williams, the adopted daughter of Jane Fonda, and there was one part of the interview that I just found riveting, because I'm not sure that I've ever heard "the absence of hope" so clearly articulat... Show All...

How Medieval Accountants and AI Created the Jobless Future

John Sharp - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - Views: 3,850

There is a rising realization in the world that we are currently just treading water with respect to the creation of new jobs, and that AI and robots are eventually going to take our jobs - as in pretty-much *all* of our jobs... Show All...

Achieving Gender-Parity in Tech

John Sharp - Sunday, July 2, 2017 - Views: 2,371

I just finished reading comments related to the news on the 500 blog that Dave McClure is stepping down as CEO at 500 Startups... Show All...

How To Get Startups to Report KPIs

John Sharp - Friday, June 9, 2017 - Views: 4,097

Let me skip the preamble and just come out and say it: most startups suck at reporting... Show All...

AI and Machine Learning: The Poincare Five Step Process

John Sharp - Saturday, April 1, 2017 - Views: 9,780

In 1908, Henri Poincare, the famous French mathematician, and pioneer of what we now call machine learning, wrote down what would later become the four stages of the "Gestalt" model of learning and psychology: Saturation, Incubation, Inspiration, an... Show All...

Venture Investing and the 80/20 Rule

John Sharp - Friday, September 9, 2016 - Views: 1,951

Almost a year ago, my Hatcher partners and I went looking for data that would give us an indication of our progress vis a vis the rest of our colleagues in venture capital... Show All...

How to Get the Most out of Hatcher

John Sharp - Friday, June 9, 2017 - Views: 862

The first thing you need to know about Hatcher is that Hatcher combines a workflow solution for investors with a data analysis platform, to provide a complete, next-generation investment platform for venture... Show All...

The Upside of Being Positive

John Sharp - Thursday, February 18, 2016 - Views: 5,020

One of the hardest things about being a startup founder is staying positive in the face of constant, and often intellectually exhausting criticism... Show All...

9 KPIs for Venture Guys

John Sharp - Tuesday, February 2, 2016 - Views: 2,752

There's a lot of opinions available regarding the best choice of KPIs for startups - but what about the investors behind the startups? What are the KPIs that venture guys should be aware of? Here's nine suggestions from Hatcher:1... Show All...

The Rise of “Cut and Paste” Data Management Platforms

John Sharp - Monday, January 11, 2016 - Views: 2,594

The problem involving whether to build or buy a cloud-based data platform to serve your workspace’s growing needs involves come complex issues... Show All...

100,000 PCs The World Will Never See

John Sharp - Friday, October 16, 2015 - Views: 5,766

100,000 - that's how many PC's the new advertising campaign from Microsoft and Intel could have put into startups or schools this week, by using their $70,000,000 ad campaign more smartly... Show All...

The Philippines - An Emerging Fintech Powerhouse?

John Sharp - Sunday, September 13, 2015 - Views: 8,352

I just got back from three days in Manila - first time I've been in several years... Show All...

The Most Unrewarding, Misunderstood, Underrated Job on the Planet

John Sharp - Monday, June 15, 2015 - Views: 21,247

If there existed an award category for "most unrewarding, misunderstood, underrated job on the planet", the strongest contender for that title would, in my opinion, be "Head of Sales... Show All...

Why This CEO Learned How To Code - And Why You Should Too

John Sharp - Saturday, March 28, 2015 - Views: 2,825

People are generally impressed when they find out I've recently put six long years into learning about database design, programming, and UI design... Show All...

Georgia (Republic Of) On My Mind

John Sharp - Saturday, February 28, 2015 - Views: 3,719

In November, Harveen and I got the chance to visit Tehran and discovered a population almost the size of Germany and an emerging market that is about to become a "must go" destination (see "Reading Term Sheets in Tehran") - so last week, when I was i... Show All...

Why Hatcher Loves Emerging Markets

John Sharp - Wednesday, December 17, 2014 - Views: 4,076

Last week, I visited our new partners in the beating heart of South America - Sao Paulo and Rio... Show All...

Using Planetary Motion to Spot Bad Startups

John Sharp - Friday, November 7, 2014 - Views: 4,732

Non-performing startups are not always easy to spot... Show All...

Start-Ups Led by Fifty Year Olds Do Better

John Sharp - Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - Views: 3,279

If you're an older CEO running a startup, chances are you're running a Hatcher startup... Show All...

Telr Closes Over-Subscribed Series A

John Sharp - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - Views: 2,312

Telr, the merchant payment platform we created last October, and merged with Dubai-based Innovate Payments in June this year, has just completed an over-subscribed Series A fund-raising, led by Hatcher and iMENA, based in Amman, Jordan... Show All...

Why Hatcher Loves the Next Generation of Financial Services

John Sharp - Monday, October 6, 2014 - Views: 4,502

Charles Moldow posted a thoughtful article yesterday on TechCrunch entitled "How A Trillion-Dollar Market Remains Hidden In Plain Sight", arguing that there is a massive opportunity in financing non-bank financial services... Show All...

Hatcher is "Go" for Launch!

John Sharp - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - Views: 4,326

Yes - after almost a year of "self-incubation", Hatcher... Show All...

Reading Term Sheets in Teheran

John Sharp - Wednesday, September 3, 2014 - Views: 3,183

First, a disclaimer... Show All...

Why China Kicks Ass

John Sharp - Monday, August 18, 2014 - Views: 2,860

I had a meeting yesterday with the CEO of an entrepreneurial hardware venture that is looking for funding from us... Show All...

The Three Reasons Investors Invest

John Sharp - Friday, August 8, 2014 - Views: 2,185

Pitching a new business proposition to an investor isn't rocket science - in fact, the most effective pitches involve, of all things, empathy... Show All...

Series A Zombies

John Sharp - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - Views: 2,675

Every day, I meet entrepreneurs who are struggling to raise their first real round of funding... Show All...

Every Business Model That Has Ever Existed

John Sharp - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - Views: 9,175

One of the most vexing problems for startups is figuring out what revenue model to apply... Show All...

The Next Wave of Investment in Startups

John Sharp - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - Views: 3,134

Money hates being idle... Show All...

Convertible Notes Explained

John Sharp - Thursday, July 18, 2013 - Views: 5,204

There's a lot of blog posts out there about why startups shouldn't use convertible notes to raise capital... Show All...

Founders: Get Your Fair Share of Equity

John Sharp - Thursday, July 11, 2013 - Views: 2,840

The truth is rarely told but known by everyone: not every founder of a start-up does an equal amount of work... Show All...

The Hatcher Worldview

John Sharp - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - Views: 3,132

The idea behind Hatcher is, simply put, the application of the emerging crowd-funding model to investors that are sophisticated and experienced, and entrepreneurs that are executing on their vision for market leadership... Show All...

Review: Business Model Generation

John Sharp - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - Views: 3,420

While browsing in an airport bookstore, I recently came across a copy of Business Model Generation - a Wiley publication written by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur... Show All...

The 20:20:20 Rule of a Successful VC Meeting

John Sharp - Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - Views: 3,371

So you're about to go meet with a VC... Show All...

The Best Investor Deck Ever

John Sharp - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - Views: 25,172

The founder of a company I'm an adviser to recently asked me for tips on creating a PowerPoint presentation for his upcoming investor roadshow... Show All...

Where The Money Is

John Sharp - Saturday, June 26, 2010 - Views: 3,234

One of my partner investors in Heardable sent me along a link to a deck the other day from the Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc... Show All...

Show Me The Demo

John Sharp - Friday, June 25, 2010 - Views: 3,353

I just had a meeting with a buddy and he got mad at me because he felt that he'd crossed a threshold in terms of what his technology could achieve and, for whatever reason, I wasn't buying it (enough)... Show All...

30 Tips for Writing a Business Plan and Raising Capital

John Sharp - Friday, June 18, 2010 - Views: 4,139

Over the past twenty years, the folks behind this site have helped a number of entrepreneurs and startup companies raise tens of millions of dollars from venture investors... Show All...

Entrepreneurs - A Little Accounting Knowledge Can Make a Big Difference

John Sharp - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - Views: 3,516

A number of years back, I was approached by a company in that needed some help finding a strategic partner... Show All...

How to Write an Executive Summary

John Sharp - Saturday, March 13, 2010 - Views: 4,428

A couple of days ago, I posted a blog entitled 5 Easy Steps to a Great Business Plan and some of you were kind enough to email me with some kind words about it... Show All...

5 Easy Steps to a Great Business Plan

John Sharp - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - Views: 3,221

Writing a great business plan (and I've authored and co-authored dozens of plans) is not that hard... Show All...

The Five People You Meet in a (Successful) Startup

John Sharp - Sunday, March 7, 2010 - Views: 6,115

The Visionary Essential to any new company's success, but may appear mad/dormant/useless to staff members other than the Wise Man, and especially to the Willing Slaves... Show All...

Why Startups Start Up

John Sharp - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - Views: 2,457

As exciting as it can be to watch the growth of a single-cell idea into a company, sometimes the cells don't divide fast enough for the organism to survive... Show All...

10 Things You Need Before Pitching an Investor

John Sharp - Monday, September 7, 2009 - Views: 2,648

This list is designed to work as a process flow chart - if you are missing any of these items, you shouldn't, in my opinion, proceed to the next one - unless you're a proven serial entrepreneur, in which case you can reduce this list to th... Show All...