Start up blogs
January 12, 2011
As an OpenView Venture Partners analyst I talk to a lot of great entrepreneurs, management teams and energized CEOs on a daily basis. Unfortunately, because we invest in such a small percentage of those companies with whom I converse, I often feel I leave a meeting without the ability to provide the significant value these entrepreneurs deserve. The earlier stage companies often ask me questions concerning what we expect from a company prior to making an investment, what to include in a business plan, how a management team needs to change in order to scale, how a company can attract new customers while gaining additional revenue from existing customers and the best way to create competitive advantage.
These are all valid and important questions that require a lot of discussion to hammer out and find the best solutions — and they aren’t necessarily ones VCs should answer. Below, I compiled a list of blogs I found valuable and informative. Some of them address the exact questions we hear on a daily basis.
They may be targeted to start ups; however, expansion or late stage companies can also find value in them.
Ben’s Blog co-founder and General Partner of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz
Steve Blank
High tech entrepreneur
On Startups Self proclaimed start up junkie and Founder/CTO @HubSpot
AVC Internet commentary by Fred Wilson, a New York-based venture capitalist (his MBA Monday series is particularly interesting) Instigator Blog Thoughts & lessons learned on start ups, entrepreneurship, marketing and other stuff. Authored by Ben Yoskovitz, founder at a start up accelerator.
Also: OpenView Labs is our own great resource for software managers. We developed the website to share OpenView’s expertise and approaches for building expansion stage technology companies.