All in Industry Insights
The Wall Street Journal
Steve Case, along with his investment firm, Revolution, are bringing investment opportunities to start-ups outside of California, New York and Massachusetts. Part of Case's strategy to do so will be through Rise of the Rest startup bus tours, which are described as "a series of weeklong tours of startups, meetings with elected leaders, speeches at incubators and pitch competitions."
USA TODAY
AOL founder, Steve Case, has a different point of view than most investors when it comes to supporting and investing in early-stage companies. To grow the US economy, Case argues that capital must be more equally distributed to states other than California, New York and Massachusetts, which currently receive about 80% of the nation's venture capital investments.
Food Tech Connect
The food industry needs to step up their game when it comes to innovative new products. Many large food companies today rely heavily on marketing rather than research and development of new products to attract customers. However, this is becoming less effective as the average consumer is rapidly changing. Health Warrior, one of NRV's portfolio companies, is recognized as an innovative food company for its development of unique products, such as Chia Bars, which are one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet.
McKinsey&Company
NRV believes taking a hands-on approach to mentoring is essential to positioning early stage companies for success - our Portfolio Adviser program was created to offer start-ups real world industry expertise to help take them to the next level. In this article, longtime private equity CEO Don Gogel discusses how operating partners give firms a competitive advantage "because they love getting their hands around a business and coaching senior people," creating operational improvements in portfolio companies.
ExitEvent
Not many VC firms can claim companies with multi-million dollar valuations as portfolio companies. Even fewer can claim half their investments go to female or minority-led companies. Achieving these results starts with a strong and shared commitment to improving diversity, understanding biases and working to dismantle institutional barriers.
Sena Hill
"In black and white, the term sheet stated: “Series A investor shall have right to appoint two Directors to the Board.” My initial knee-jerk reaction was not very accepting. What Board of Directors (BOD)? Who and why do we need outsiders dictating how we run our company? Ultimately, my partner and I held our noses and signed the deal. Fortunately, our BOD proved itself a valuable asset not only to our business, but also to us individually as entrepreneurs and executives." Kyle Zasky of Sena Hill discusses the mix of talents, skills, and experience that go into building a high-performance board.
Forbes
Serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley resident Jenny Lefcourt discusses verbiage in the start-up world and voices her concerns that, in this funding environment, entrepreneurs who are not familiar with "VC speak" may struggle to find capital without engaged, motivated investors by their side. Lefcourt offers resources and tips that help entrepreneurs give VCs the information they are after.
USCIS
"U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is proposing a new rule, which would allow certain international entrepreneurs to be considered for temporary permission to be in the US so that they may start or scale their businesses here. This proposed rule, when finalized, will help our economy grow by expanding immigration options for foreign entrepreneurs who meet certain criteria for creating jobs, attracting investment and generating revenue in the U.S."
New York Times
"Five years ago Google became focused on building the perfect team, guided by the belief that studying workers can transform productivity. In the last decade, Google's People Operations department has scrutinized everything from how people eat together, to traits the best managers share - all with the goal of determining why some teams flourish where others fail."
TechCrunch
"The food industry is going through an interesting shift in the U.S., moving away from an era of processed food and microwave meals, to one where people are increasingly concerned about the kinds of foods their eating, their freshness, sustainability, and other factors."
Next Juggernaut
"On Demand Services offer the customer an exciting new world of lifestyle convenience, but is often explained as "the uberification" of services, only describing one of the many models emerging now. While product designers focus on the characteristics buyers will value, service designers focus on the experiences customers want to have again and again"
Medium
"Adeo Ressi of the Founder Institute digs into data spanning over 110 cities and six continents, highlighting the unique entrepreneurial strengths of each region, and encourages early-stage founders to look outside of Silicon Valley and build great companies right where they are."
First Round
"If your start-up is still building its early sales function or tallying its first deals, it must approach sales differently. According to The Sales Method creator Whitney Sales, early stage companies need to place more emphasis on their founding narrative, customize their customer stories and integrate both seamlessly into a structured prospect pitch."
Food Dive
"Kellog CEO John Bryant outlines three disruptive trends causing manufacturers to re-think strategies and look to the future of the consumer: the growth of e-commerce, how consumers consume media and marketing messages, and changing consumer views on food and the definition of health and wellness."
Artivest
"Private equity has offered outperformance over public markets generally and in particular when initiated in weak markets and weak U.S. economic growth regimes. This dynamic is the stuff that diversification is made of."
DG South
With investors having poured over $23 Billion into financial technology (or fintech) start-ups around the world, and estimated market revenues of at least $4.7 Trillion, all eyes are turning to fintech. Richmond's own WealthForge is listed among nine Southern fintech start-ups to bet on this year.
Entrepreneur
Starting a new business is not an informal process, and should never be treated like a hobby between friends. Unfortunately, as a startup advisor and angel investor, I’ve seen too many ventures with great potential get destroyed or set back by legal and other shortcuts that should never have been allowed to happen. The path to true success does not allow for shortcuts.
Starting Monday (5/16), new rules will permit anyone, not just the moneyed, to risk $2,000 a year or more investing in small companies in exchange for a stake in the business. Companies can raise up to $1 million a year this way.
Telegraph.co.uk
Stockholm is the second most prolific tech hub in the world on a per capita basis, behind Silicon Valley. How did that happen and where does it go from here?
A Crowded Space
Josh Breinlinger
We don’t often think about how to buy clothes in a retail store - but the expectations are learned over years of shopping. We all know when we walk into almost any clothing store in the US – we can browse around, someone will probably greet us and ask if we need any help, we can try on any items we wish, we can pay via cash or credit card, we most likely can’t negotiate much, and we are probably able to return any unworn items without too much trouble as long as we save the receipt. Why do we know all that? Because these are accepted policies that we’ve learned for clothing stores. From the first time we went shopping with our parents - this is what we were taught.
