I have a presentation coming up in August on best practices of VCs and private equity funds in deal origination. You've surely seen lots of talks on how entrepreneurs can raise capital; the question I'm exploring is the reverse, which is how investors can find potential investments. If you have [...continue reading]
> Investing > Fund ManagementHow to Scale Early-Stage Investing
Before making the decision to join ff Venture Capital, I did some research on early-stage tech investing as an asset class and how it’s evolving. What was striking was what an attractive asset class it was. Although any given early-stage company is quite risky, when aggregated across a large [...continue reading]
Venture Capitalists and the Upside-Down Pyramid
In response to my post on VC's increasing use of operationally focused team members, HBS professor Noam Wasserman sent me an excerpt of his dissertation on 'The Venture Capitalist as Entrepreneur: The Characteristics and Dynamics Within VC Firms'. A key point he makes in this paper is that, "Most [...continue reading]
HBS Club of CT, Nov. 19 event: Private Equity Operating Executives Panel with Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic, CVC Capital
The Harvard Business School Club of Connecticut invites you to a Panel Discussion on It's the People: Improving Private Equity Portfolio Company Valuations by Working with Operating Executives Bush-Holley Historic Site 39 Strickland Road, Cos Cob, CT [...continue reading]
Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds’ Use of CRM
Paul Greenberg just posted a summary I wrote of how private equity and venture funds are using CRM at his blog. I've cross-posted it here: Paul asked me to write a brief summary of the findings of my research on Best Practices in Private Equity and Venture Capital Deal Origination. [...continue reading]
Asset Managers and How They Power Their Businesses with Salesforce CRM
For our research project on VC/private equity deal origination, Renny Monaghan of Salesforce pointed me to a 2008 Dreamforce panel on Asset Managers and How They Power Their Businesses with Salesforce CRM. The video and Powerpoint are downloadable here. My notes follow. I think [...continue reading]
Why Do Investors Choose High-fee Mutual Funds Despite the Lower Returns?
With their combination of low fees, tax efficiency and simple, autopilot investing style, index funds seem to have captivated American investors. At the same time, however, many investors still hold trillions of dollars in high-fee funds despite well-publicized evidence that low-fee alternatives [...continue reading]
