Entrepreneurs who dream of building the next Amazon, Facebook, or Google can take advantage of one of the most powerful economic engines the world has ever known: venture capital. To do so, you need to woo, impress, and persuade venture capitalists to take a risk on an unproven idea. That task is challenge enough. But choosing the right investor can be harder still. Even if you manage to get backing, you want your VC to be a partner, not some adversary who will undermine your vision in order to make a quick return. Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. By his early thirties, he had helped build two successful start-ups-one went public, the other was acquired. Now he draws on his experience and unique perspective on the "other side" as a venture capitalist helping entrepreneurs bring their dreams to fruition. Bussgang offers detailed insights, colorful stories, and practical advice gathered from his own experience as well as from interviews with dozens of the most successful players on both sides of the game, including Twitter's Jack Dorsey and LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partnership that works for everyone. An insider's guide to the secrets of the world venture capital, Mastering the VC Game will prove invaluable for entrepreneurs seeking capital and successful partnerships.

"Whether you're just getting started, or you’re ten years into your career, Entering StartUpLand will be a useful tool to enhance your startup knowledge, accelerate your career, and navigate your way to StartUpLand success." -- Huffington Post Many professionals aspire to work for startups. Executives from large companies view them as models to help them adapt to today's dynamic innovation economy, while freshly minted MBAs see magic in founding something new. Yes, startups look magical, but they can also be chaotic and inaccessible. Many books are written for those who aspire to be founders, but a company only has one or two of those. What's needed is something that deconstructs the typical startup organization for the thousands of employees who join a fledgling company and do the day-to-day work required to grow it into something of value. Entering StartUpLand is a practical, step-by-step guide that provides an insider's analysis of various startup roles and responsibilities--including product management, marketing, growth, and sales--to help you figure out if you want to join a startup and what to expect if you do. You'll gain insight into how successful startups operate and learn to assess which ones you might want to join--or emulate. Inside this book you'll find: A tour of typical startup roles to help you determine which one might be the best fit for you Profiles of startup executives across many different functions who share their stories and describe their responsibilities A methodology to identify and evaluate startups and position yourself to find the opportunity that's right for you Written by an experienced venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and Harvard Business School professor, Entering StartUpLand will guide you as you seek your ideal entry point into this popular, cutting-edge organizational paradigm.

An engaging guide to excelling in today's venture capital arena Beginning in 2005, Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, managing directors at Foundry Group, wrote a long series of blog posts describing all the parts of a typical venture capital Term Sheet: a document which outlines key financial and other terms of a proposed investment. Since this time, they've seen the series used as the basis for a number of college courses, and have been thanked by thousands of people who have used the information to gain a better understanding of the venture capital field. Drawn from the past work Feld and Mendelson have written about in their blog and augmented with newer material, Venture Capital Financings puts this discipline in perspective and lays out the strategies that allow entrepreneurs to excel in their start-up companies. Page by page, this book discusses all facets of the venture capital fundraising process. Along the way, Feld and Mendelson touch on everything from how valuations are set to what externalities venture capitalists face that factor into entrepreneurs' businesses. Includes a breakdown analysis of the mechanics of a Term Sheet and the tactics needed to negotiate Details the different stages of the venture capital process, from starting a venture and seeing it through to the later stages Explores the entire venture capital ecosystem including those who invest in venture capitalist Contain standard documents that are used in these transactions Written by two highly regarded experts in the world of venture capital The venture capital arena is a complex and competitive place, but with this book as your guide, you'll discover what it takes to make your way through it.

40 leading venture capitalists come together to teach entrepreneurs how to succeed with their startup The Entrepreneurial Bible to Venture Capital is packed with invaluable advice about how to raise angel and venture capital funding, how to build value in a startup, and how to exit a company with maximum value for both founders and investors. It guides entrepreneurs through every step in an entrepreneurial venture from the legalities of raising initial capital to knowing when to change tactics. Andrew Romans is the co-founder and general partner of Rubicon Venture Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in privately held technology companies and enables its investors to co-invest along side the fund on a deal-by-deal basis via innovative sidecar funds right up to IPO or M&A exit. Romans is also the founder and general partner of The Founders Club, a venture capital equity exchange fund and investor in later stage liquidity transactions.

A Wall Street Journal Bestseller! What are venture capitalists saying about your startup behind closed doors? And what can you do to influence that conversation? If Silicon Valley is the greatest wealth-generating machine in the world, Sand Hill Road is its humming engine. That's where you'll find the biggest names in venture capital, including famed VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, where lawyer-turned-entrepreneur-turned-VC Scott Kupor serves as managing partner. Whether you're trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VCs think. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs. Kupor explains, for instance: • Why most VCs typically invest in only one startup in a given business category. • Why the skill you need most when raising venture capital is the ability to tell a compelling story. • How to handle a "down round," when startups have to raise funds at a lower valuation than in the previous round. • What to do when VCs get too entangled in the day-to-day operations of the business. • Why you need to build relationships with potential acquirers long before you decide to sell. Filled with Kupor's firsthand experiences, insider advice, and practical takeaways, Secrets of Sand Hill Road is the guide every entrepreneur needs to turn their startup into the next unicorn.

The Startup Game is the first up-close look at how the relationship between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs is critical to enhancing the success of any economy. Entrepreneurs drive the future, and the last several decades have been a thrilling ride of astounding, far-reaching innovation. Behind this transformative progress are also the venture capitalists - who are at once the investors, coaches and allies of the entrepreneurs. William H. Draper III knows this story first-hand, because as a venture capitalist, he helped write it. For more than 40 years, Bill Draper has worked with top entrepreneurs in fabled Silicon Valley, where today's vision is made into tomorrow's reality. From a venture capitalist who saw the potential of Skype, Apollo Computer, Hotmail, OpenTable, and many other companies, come firsthand stories of success. In these pages, Draper explores how to evaluate innovative ideas and the entrepreneurs behind those ideas, and he shares lessons from Yahoo, Zappos, Baidu, Tesla Motors, Activision, Measurex, and more. Also, in revealing his on-the-ground account of how Deng Xiaoping brought China roaring into the modern world and how Manmohan Singh unlocked the creative genius of Indian entrepreneurs, Draper stresses the essential value of farsighted political leadership in creating opportunity. The author also discusses his efforts to bring best practices of the venture capitalist/entrepreneur partnership to the social sector. Written in an engaging narrative, and incorporating many of the author's personal experiences, this book provides a much-needed look at how the world of venture capital and entrepreneurship works.

The first of it's kind, #BreakIntoVC is an essential guide for anyone looking to gain a straightforward knowledge base on the fundamentals of venture capital. Providing research, resources, anecdotes, and information, #BreakIntoVC will help college undergrads make the most of interviews and meetings while demystifying venture capital and making the industry accessible. With a small number of opportunities in venture capital and a growing candidate pool, set yourself up for success by getting the insights from insiders. By reading this book, you'll have a clear understanding of what an incoming analyst in a venture capital firm should know. You'll get the basics of accounting, how to pitch companies and understand valuation techniques from early to late stage companies. If you're exploring the industry or if you're curious about venture investing, #BreakIntoVC is a great book to get you started.

“An incisive history of the venture-capital industry.” —New Yorker “An excellent and original economic history of venture capital.” —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “A detailed, fact-filled account of America’s most celebrated moneymen.” —New Republic “Extremely interesting, readable, and informative...Tom Nicholas tells you most everything you ever wanted to know about the history of venture capital, from the financing of the whaling industry to the present multibillion-dollar venture funds.” —Arthur Rock “In principle, venture capital is where the ordinarily conservative, cynical domain of big money touches dreamy, long-shot enterprise. In practice, it has become the distinguishing big-business engine of our time...[A] first-rate history.” —New Yorker VC tells the riveting story of how the venture capital industry arose from America’s longstanding identification with entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Whether the venture is a whaling voyage setting sail from New Bedford or the latest Silicon Valley startup, VC is a state of mind as much as a way of doing business, exemplified by an appetite for seeking extreme financial rewards, a tolerance for failure and experimentation, and a faith in the promise of innovation to generate new wealth. Tom Nicholas’s authoritative history takes us on a roller coaster of entrepreneurial successes and setbacks. It describes how iconic firms like Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia invested in Genentech and Apple even as it tells the larger story of VC’s birth and evolution, revealing along the way why venture capital is such a quintessentially American institution—one that has proven difficult to recreate elsewhere.

This "brilliant and provocative" (Walter Isaacson) guide shares nine principles to adapt and survive the technological changes shaping our future from the director of the MIT Media Lab and a veteran Wired journalist. The world is more complex and volatile today than at any other time in our history. The tools of our modern existence are getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, transforming every aspect of society, from business to culture and from the public sphere to our most private moments. The people who succeed will be the ones who learn to think differently. In Whiplash, Joi Ito and Jeff Howe distill that logic into nine organizing principles for navigating and surviving this tumultuous period: Emergence over Authority Pull over Push Compasses over Maps Risk over Safety Disobedience over Compliance Practice over Theory Diversity over Ability Resilience over Strength Systems over Objects Filled with incredible case studies and cutting-edge research and philosophies from the MIT Media Lab and beyond, Whiplash will help you adapt and succeed in this unpredictable world./DIV

WHAT IF YOU HAD AN ANGEL ON YOUR SIDE? "Terrific advice from a master of the angel investing game. Brian Cohen reveals the art and craft of raising angel money. An investment in this book will pay off a thousandfold." -- DR. HOWARD MORGAN, founder and partner at First Round Capital When you connect with the right angel investor, it's like finding a new best friend--you just have to know what makes him or her happy. Smart funding is waiting for smart founders. Raising funds is all about connecting with the investor who's right for you--and What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know shows you exactly how to succeed. Veteran early-stage investor Brian Cohen knows how to spot a great company destined for success, and in this groundbreaking book he offers soup-to-nuts guidance for any entrepreneur seeking to launch an invention, a product, or a great new idea into a receptive marketplace. As chairman of the board of directors of the New York Angels, Cohen is one of the most engaged angel investors out there today. The first investor in Pinterest, he describes exactly what angels want to see, hear, and feel before they take out their checkbooks: A clear exit strategy before the startup even launches Facts that turn "due" diligence into "do" diligence Authenticity--"save your spinning for the fitness center" Proof that you "live inside the customer's head" Cohen gives invaluable insight into how the most successful angels view due diligence, friends and family money, crowdfunding, team building, scalability, iteration, exit strategies--and much more. This one-of-a-kind book provides a rare look inside the minds of people who are in the business of funding businesses just like yours. Read What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know to get your best shot at funding for your product after your very first pitch. PRAISE FOR WHAT EVERY ANGEL INVESTOR WANTS YOU TO KNOW: "Brian Cohen is truly the entrepreneur's best friend. Cohen and Kador haven distilled their first-hand experiences into an intensely personal, highly readable journey into the mind of angels that should be kept at the bedside of every startup CEO." -- DAVID S. ROSE, founder, New York Angels, and CEO, Gust "Meet one of the fundamental building blocks of the entrepreneurial scene. In one easy-to-read package, readers now have the wisdom of Brian Cohen, perhaps the most well-connected investor/entrepreneur in New York." -- MURAT AKTIHANOGLU, founder and managing director, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator "What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know gives you an actionable checklist for success in fund-raising and entrepreneurship. Cohen and Kador provide an exhilarating ride for those who want to pilot their own business." -- REED HOLDEN, serial entrepreneur and author of Negotiating with Backbone "Personal insights from a seasoned angel investor. An important addition to the reading list for today's entrepreneurs." -- SCOTT CASE, CEO, Startup America Partnership "What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know is a must-read for entrepreneurs and investors who want to fi nance startup dreams--an accessible, jargon-free, practical primer." -- WHITNEY JOHNSON, author of Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream and cofounder, Rose Park Advisors