The “Zero Tolerance for Egos” Standard — Working With Founders/VCs
Life is just too short to work with jerks. The idiosyncratic risk of working with egomaniacs is real and sometimes unknowable after the docs have closed. Egos can take a company down. Founders can turn rogue and go their own way because of course who knows better than them how to run a business. VCs can for se
The Curious Get It Done
There’s a myriad of considerations when investing in a startup but the “People” variable of the “People. Product. Potential” formula is by far the greatest and most important.
The Expert
Interior design consulting platform
The Exploration Company
New generation, reusable spacecrafts
The Eye in the Sky: How New Space Can Help Measure and Mitigate Changes in Climate
Cleantech spent close to a decade in the wilderness after a string of high-profile bankruptcies, but the story of technology as a tool in the fight against climate change doesn’t end here.
The Four Horsemen: Mobile + Cloud + Data + Design
The new paradigm is upon us. Just as social media is no longer an investment trend but now an essential tool in every business, so go the new four horsemen of software startups: mobile + cloud + data + design.
The Fundraising Rollercoaster
My wife and I just got back from frolicking around LA with our four young kids for a week with, of course, stops in Disneyland and Knots Berry Farm. Interspersed between rides and bathroom stops, I was on the phone helping a handful of companies that we have funded in the Promus Ventures community raise addit
The Importance of Momentum
I was visiting with the founders of a company in the Promus Ventures’ community last week. The KPIs of this company have been growing well week over week until the last four to six weeks where the numbers have started to dramatically increase. There have been continual improvements to the product, but general
The Map and the Territory
A number of years ago, I read a book by French author Michel Houellebecq titled La Carte et le Territoire (EN: The Map and the Territory). The expression was first coined by Polish American scholar Alfred Korzybski encapsulating the view that an abstraction derived from something is not the thing itself.
The Number One Rule for Startups
There are many traits needed for a startup team to grow and scale, but the NUMBER ONE rule for any startup cannot be stressed enough: Never, ever run out of money! It is as basic as the human need for oxygen.