My first meeting was actually a morning event, SVASE's VC Breakfast - and I was very surprised that there are events in Silicon Valley that start at 8am...
Anyway, the event took place at Townsend and Townsend and Crew (pretty boring accountants), main guest of the VC Breakfast was Dan Scholnick, Principal with Trinity Ventures... And he was really fun and inspiring to listen to - first he gave us all an intro to Trinity, they currently have their 10th fund of $ 300m, investing in early stages... Dan himself started off as an early employee of a startup called Wily and than he founded his own mobile apps company, before he went "to the other side"...
One of the key messages Dan gave in his intro was advise to startups: "If you want to raise money and you are ready for it, go ahead and take as much cash as you can (and VCs will give you)"... When asked about dilution, valuations and equity level for founders he said something which I absolutely agree with: "Don't be concerned about valuation and dilution at the entry of a VC... If you succeed there will be a lot of opportunities to negotiate at the time of an exit"... Very much true, I wish more entrepreneurs had this approach, it would help many of them to success...
Large part of the event was dedicated to startup participants to give their pitches and then listen to Dan's feedback... In general I must say I retained back my self-confidence when I heard his feedback - it was a lot more like what I would say in his place (unlike yesterday at the first SVASE event)... Interesting how even in the Valley VCs differ in views and opinions... That's good - I have to lose my ideals of the Valley and get it back from the pedestal... It's in the process now...
After the VC Breakfast I headed to Draper Fischer Jurvetson (known as DFJ) where I was supposed to meet with the Director, Elizabeth Clarkson... I actually helped to arrange this through DFJ's Managing Director Don Wood who I hosted in Prague beginning of last year when DFJ first came to the CEE region to inspect the grounds... And funnily enough, Don was also the first person I ran into when entering the DFJ building...
BTW, one funny thing... Although I am not too "Japanese" about taking photos, on this trip I just try to have my camera with me at least sometimes - and today before going to DFJ it almost got me in troubles... When shooting a photo in front of DFJ, a big car with almost even bigger security guy came to me and the guy asked me "what's your name?", I was a bit shocked, so I replied "Ondrej", then he said "well, Ondrej, get your ass out of here, no more pictures, I have your license plate number"... Sounds funny, but it was really not that funny, explaining him that I actually do have an appointemnt scheduled and that was touristy what I was doing... Anyway, got the photos, here they are - as you can see, I wouldn't make a very good spy...
Anyway, the event took place at Townsend and Townsend and Crew (pretty boring accountants), main guest of the VC Breakfast was Dan Scholnick, Principal with Trinity Ventures... And he was really fun and inspiring to listen to - first he gave us all an intro to Trinity, they currently have their 10th fund of $ 300m, investing in early stages... Dan himself started off as an early employee of a startup called Wily and than he founded his own mobile apps company, before he went "to the other side"...
One of the key messages Dan gave in his intro was advise to startups: "If you want to raise money and you are ready for it, go ahead and take as much cash as you can (and VCs will give you)"... When asked about dilution, valuations and equity level for founders he said something which I absolutely agree with: "Don't be concerned about valuation and dilution at the entry of a VC... If you succeed there will be a lot of opportunities to negotiate at the time of an exit"... Very much true, I wish more entrepreneurs had this approach, it would help many of them to success...
Large part of the event was dedicated to startup participants to give their pitches and then listen to Dan's feedback... In general I must say I retained back my self-confidence when I heard his feedback - it was a lot more like what I would say in his place (unlike yesterday at the first SVASE event)... Interesting how even in the Valley VCs differ in views and opinions... That's good - I have to lose my ideals of the Valley and get it back from the pedestal... It's in the process now...
After the VC Breakfast I headed to Draper Fischer Jurvetson (known as DFJ) where I was supposed to meet with the Director, Elizabeth Clarkson... I actually helped to arrange this through DFJ's Managing Director Don Wood who I hosted in Prague beginning of last year when DFJ first came to the CEE region to inspect the grounds... And funnily enough, Don was also the first person I ran into when entering the DFJ building...
BTW, one funny thing... Although I am not too "Japanese" about taking photos, on this trip I just try to have my camera with me at least sometimes - and today before going to DFJ it almost got me in troubles... When shooting a photo in front of DFJ, a big car with almost even bigger security guy came to me and the guy asked me "what's your name?", I was a bit shocked, so I replied "Ondrej", then he said "well, Ondrej, get your ass out of here, no more pictures, I have your license plate number"... Sounds funny, but it was really not that funny, explaining him that I actually do have an appointemnt scheduled and that was touristy what I was doing... Anyway, got the photos, here they are - as you can see, I wouldn't make a very good spy...
No photos here ...(?) Going to post them, the one with the security guard?
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