Killer Robots Are Already Here
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
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
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
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
Let me skip the preamble and just come out and say it: most startups suck at reporting... Show All...
Optimizing Returns for Venture Investors
On the heels of the most recent posts from John Sharp, one of my partners at Hatcher, I got to thinking it is high time I wrote my first post... Show All...
AI and Machine Learning: The Poincare Five Step Process
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...
Risk & Return in Venture Investing – Disrupting the Balance
On the heels of the most recent posts from John Sharp, one of my partners at Hatcher, I got to thinking it is high time I wrote my first post... Show All...
Venture Investing and the 80/20 Rule
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
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
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...
How to Make People Happy and Make Money - One Family’s Story
The linked page below gives a summary of some pivotal moments in the amazing business success of India's Maroo family... Show All...
9 KPIs for Venture Guys
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
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...
New Zealand: Angel Investment Activity
I represented Hatcher at the Asian Business Angels Forum in Queenstown, New Zealand, on 15-16 October 2015... Show All...
100,000 PCs The World Will Never See
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?
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
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
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
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
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
Non-performing startups are not always easy to spot... Show All...
Start-Ups Led by Fifty Year Olds Do Better
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
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
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!
Yes - after almost a year of "self-incubation", Hatcher... Show All...
Why China Kicks Ass
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
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...
Hiring to Build a Successful Fund
I'm currently hard at work on a project involving the transition of a personal holding company into a venture development company backed by an evergreen fund structure... Show All...
Series A Zombies
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
One of the most vexing problems for startups is figuring out what revenue model to apply... Show All...
Convertible Notes Explained
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
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
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
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
So you're about to go meet with a VC... Show All...
The Best Investor Deck Ever
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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...
The Three Essential Functions of the Board
I just re-read Peter Drucker's "Three Functions of the Board"... Show All...
Raising Capital Takes Time
I met with a friend the other day who is looking for capital for his new startup... Show All...
Tips On Closing Your VC Deal
I was giving a phone recommendation for an investment banking friend yesterday and while talking about the work we've done together, the interviewer touched on a VC investment that we closed fourteen years ago... Show All...
Funding 101: What is Due Diligence?
The first time I heard the term "due diligence", as a budding entrepreneur, I had absolutely no idea what it meant... Show All...
David Rose: 10 Ways to Improve Your VC Pitch
David Rose, a serial entrepreneur-turned-VC partner who speaks faster than just about any man on the planet, has a terrific video up at Ted... Show All...
Two Essential Elements of a Great Pitch
Despite thousands of web pages listing advice on pitching to VCs, many world-be entrepreneurs (and some advice-givers) still fail to include two very important elements in their pitches: 1... Show All...
The CEO Rule: Customers, Employees, Owners
Many years ago, after the closing of the first round of financing for my first venture-backed company, the investors and founders went out for dinner in a very nice restaurant to celebrate... Show All...
The Importance of Slide One
We were about an hour into a board meeting the other day when the management team laid an extremely impressive year over year growth figure on the table for the first two quarters of 2008... Show All...