THE GREAT AMERICAN STARTUP

Sunday, November 30, 2014

An Angel Investor Retrospective

An Angel Investor Retrospective: My Brief History with the Sand Hill Angels

05/2015 Hall acquired by Atlasian

02/2015 Mentor for the UCB Center for Entrepreneurship Delta Prize

01/2015 Founder at Batchery.io

12/2014 Lead Investor on Series Seed and Convertible Note Holder on CrowdMics.com

12/2014 Venture Advisor, I-Gate, http://www.igateihub.org/about/

12/2014 Venture Madness, Festival Judge and Sponsor, http://www.venturemadness.com/

11/2014 UC Berkeley LAUNCH Festival Judge: http://launch.berkeley.edu/

11/2014 Carnegie Mellon West, Pitch Panelist, Integrated Innovation Institute, http://www.cmu.edu/integrated-innovation/

11/2014 Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mentor/Panelist, Angel and Venture Capital Financing for Entrepreneurs and Investors, http://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?q=FINANCE%2B385&academicYear=20142015

10/2014 Born2Global, The Future of Korea, Korean Start-up Demo Day Silicon Valley, Speaker/Panelist, http://www.venturesquare.net/557111 & http://www.born2global.com/attatch_images/20141111/20141111141857.jpg

10/2014 Startup Weekend Tri-Valley Announces David Koehn as Keynote Speaker: http://goo.gl/PQTxtJ

10/2014 Open up to Advisor Role for select start-ups: rooT, Imperative, Lucolo, VenYoo, ErrandRunner, MoodMe

09/2014 Phoenix Funding Post Event with Panelist David Koehn, Investor Round Table: http://www.growsouthwest.com/phoenix-fundingpost-event-preview-with-panelist-david-koehn/

08/2014 Angel Didactic 1: Starting Up in Angel Investing: http://vimeo.com/103479873

08/2014 Angel Didactic 2: One Approach to the Process of Angel Investing: http://vimeo.com/103479872

08/2014 Angel Didactic 3: Defining and Investment Thesis: http://vimeo.com/103761905

08/2014 Angel Didactic 4: Bring the Deal into Sand Hill Angels: http://vimeo.com/103761907

08/2014Angel Didactic 5: Understanding The Sand Hill Angels Screening Process: http://vimeo.com/103761906

08/2014 Angel Didactic 6: Deal Preparation for the Sand Hill Angels Dinner Meeting: http://vimeo.com/103856797

08/2014 Angel Didactic 7: The Investment Pitch and Closing the Deal: http://vimeo.com/103856798

08/2014 Angel Didactic 8: Closing the Deal Q&A: http://vimeo.com/103856799

05/2014 Clean Power Finance Announces Commitment From Credit Suisse To Fund Residential Solar Systems; Brings Total Project Financing Investments Raised by CPF to More than One Billion Dollars: http://www.cleanpowerfinance.com/about-us/media-center/press-release/clean-power-finance-announces-commitment-credit-suisse-fund-residential-solar-systems/

05/2014 Tepper School Alumni Entrepreneurship Demo Day and Reception:

https://alumni2.tepper.cmu.edu/alumniweb/alumnichapters/archives.asp?prefix=SF#1932

05/2014 NoWait Raises 10 Million in a Series B: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/05/20/nowait-raises-10-million-to-help-diners-skip-the-line/ &

04/2014 F50 Angel Investing Forum April 2014: http://www.meetup.com/sventrepreneurs/events/175726642/

02/2014, With Tim Draper at Silicon Valley VC, Angel and Crowdfunding Conference, www.TheSohoLoft.com,

http://timesrealtynews.com/news/tim-draper-speaks-at-the-silicon-valley-vc-angel-crowdfunding-conference/

2013; 2014 Plug-N-Play Summer Expo VIP Judge

11/2013 Perkville Funded by Sand Hill Angels In Bridge to Series A &; Raises Seed Round from Leading Angel Investors:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10369005.htm & http://blog.perkville.com/post/41892064923/perkville-raises-seed-round-from-leading-angel

& http://www.cbinsights.com/company/perkville-funding

10/2013 Gobstopper (Now Curriculet) Raises $1.8M Seed Round

http://www.finsmes.com/2013/10/gobstopper-raises-1-8m-seed-funding.html

& http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gobstopper-raises-18m-seed-round-2013-10-08 & http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gobstopper-raises-1-8m-seed-110000910.html

& http://relayventures.com/news/gobstopper-raises-1-8-million/

08/2013 Angel Didactic 1: Sourcing and Vetting: http://vimeo.com/69960884

08/2013 Angel Didactic 2: Grooming the Deal to get through Pre-Screen: http://vimeo.com/69960885

08/2013 Angel Didactic 3: Preparation for Surviving the Screening Meeting: http://vimeo.com/69963134

08/2013 Angel Didactic 4: Pitching the Membership at the Investor Dinner Meeting: http://vimeo.com/69960889

08/2013: Angel Didactic 5: Making the Capital Call and Closing the Deal: http://vimeo.com/69960890

07/2013: Hall Raises 5.5 Million Series A: https://hall.com/blog/hall-raises-5-5m-series-a

07/2013: Flywheel Raises 13.8 Million Dollar Series B: http://pevc.dowjones.com/Article?an=DJFVW00020130731e97vayzn8

06/2013 Data Scientist As A Service? Spinnakr Raises ~$1 Million From Andreessen Horowitz, 500 Startups and Sand Hill Angels For Smarter Web Analytics:
* http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/data-scientist-as-a-service-spinnakr-raises-1-million-from-andreessen-horowitz-500-startups-others-for-smarter-web-analytics/

* http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/10/spinnakr-releases-idiot-proof-analytics-engine-so-anyone-can-grasp-big-data/

* http://startupbeatdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/spinnakr-has-attracted-big-name-investors-with-its-real-time-predictive-web-analytics-platform-id3319/
* http://www.thefunded.com/funds/item/8867?page=35

* http://www.pointninecap.com/spinnakr-debuts-its-web-analytics-platform-and-raises-south-of-1m-from-500-startups-a16z-others

* http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2013/06/19/goodbye-static-web-d-c-startup-looks-to-customize-the-internet/

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-it/the-download-spinnakr-aims-to-make-sense-of-big-data-for-web-sites/2013/06/07/67d05728-cecc-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

* http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/techflash/2013/06/dingman-angels-comscore-cofounder.html

* http://shades.spinnakr.com/users/21

05/2013 UpOut Graduates from Tandem and Raises $850,000 Seed Funding from Silicon Valley angels led by Sand Hill Angels:
* http://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2013/05/22/CG18745
* https://www.pehub.com/2013/05/upout-raises-850000-seed-funding-sand-hill-angels-others/
* http://vator.tv/news/2013-05-22-event-marketplace-upout-raises-850k-seed-round

03/2013 GSV In Front of the Crowd: http://www.ktvu.com/events/events/conferences/gsv-in-front-of-the-crowd/eqM8y/

01/2013 Sand Hill Angels invested $2.7M with 15 new companies in 2012: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/01/31/sand-hill-angels-invested-27m-with.html

2012 Marketplace Tech on NPR: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/angels-silicon-valley & http://www.marketplace.org/node/56162/player/storyplayer

12/2012: Sand Hill Angels Announces Record 2012 Results, 2013 Focus on Syndication, Portfolio Company Support http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sand-hill-angels-announces-record-130000368.html

10/2012: Start-ups, Mobile and the Cloud: http://cloudconexpoconference2012.sched.org/speaker/davidkoehn#.VDR5uUpX-uY

08/2012: NoWait Raises 2 Million in a Series A:
* http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/07/nowait-lets-you-join-restaurant-wait-lists-from-your-phone/

* http://vator.tv/news/2012-08-28-nowait-snaps-up-2m-for-restaurant-mobile-upgrades

* http://allthingsd.com/20120828/nowait-lines-up-2-million-in-funding-for-the-restaurant-seating-app/

* http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/28/death-to-the-restaurant-buzzer-nowait-raises-2-million-for-ios-app-waitlisting-system/

* http://startupbeat.com/2012/10/03/qa-with-nowait-co-founder-id2999/

* http://www.killerstartups.com/rising-startup-stars/nowait-ipad-app-for-restaurants/

05/2012 - CINA Entrepreneur Thought Leader Mentor - 05-29-12:
* https://www.flickr.com/photos/15706607@N08/7421290774/

* https://www.flickr.com/photos/15706607@N08/7421382954

* http://cinaevents.blogspot.com/2012/05/cina-entrepreneur-thought-leader-mentor.html

* http://vickisyoung.blogspot.com/2012/05/another-great-thought-leader-david.html

2012, 2013, 2014: "Angel Elevator Pitch": VC Taskforce: http://vctaskforce.com/

09/2011 Google Invests $75 Million in Home Solar Venture (Clean Power Finance backed by Sand Hill Angels) http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204831304576596833595375002

08/2010 Startup Weekend San Francisco #SWSF Keynote with Myself and Eric Ries:

http://greatamericanstartup.blogspot.com/2010/08/10-myths-10-minutes-10-tweets-for.html

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

A Product Leadership Retrospective

A Quick Product Leadership Retrospective

Starting early in my career I have always gravitated toward developing new initiatives from early ideation through to productization. Innovation and the start-up ecosystem runs in my DNA, for better or for worse:

I've had some time to hang out this summer and took a few minutes to reflect on my product mangement history. I've skipped a few products here and there. I also kept a few examples of great products that didn't win out in the marketplace -- but many of them did succeed and are still proving of value...

Webster at Aurigin Software

My first taste of this was at Aurigin software, an analytics business focused on the visualization of intellectual property assets and citation analysis in particular. At Aurigin we built some extremely cool viz and analysis tools, none more cool than a project we nicknamed "Webster".

Here is the Patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US6877137

Mobile at AvantGo

At AvantGo I spearheaded a Mobile Learning initiative as documented in Wireless Inc.: http://greatamericanstartup.blogspot.com/2011/02/excerpt-from-wireless-inc-by-craig.html

FieldSpace at TailWind

At TailWind: http://jungpeter.com/tailwind/index.html

We focused on mobile security and tracking.

The patent application:
http://www.patents.com/us-20060010096.html
Served: Pfizer, Army, Navy

Webley for Parus Interactive Inc.:

Re-focused brand, market and product. Transitioning from http://www.parusinteractive.com/ to http://webley.com.

My eLife for My Vision One Inc.

A now defunct Tony Robbins project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L7Yi-pkvJw&

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPOdObKK0jo&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Net Promoter for Satmetrix:

Piloted Version 1 of the Certification Product in London, 2007

http://www.netpromoter.com/training/index.jsp

Facebook Challenge App from Zazengo

http://www.slideshare.net/zazengo/zazengo-create-your-own-challenge-on-facebook?next_slideshow=1

Morfmobile Mobile Site Generator

http://mitch.carbonmade.com/projects/2095025#1

http://venturebeat.com/2008/06/19/latest-mobilebeat-nominations-nim-rnw-waterfall-mobile-youmail-v-enable-buzzd-appvoyage-jibe-morf/

Re-focused business on serving businesses rather than consumers:
http://www.pr6.com/morf.html

BeyondThePod | The DropSpot | Venjuvo

VenJuvo offered exchanges of pre-owned items for credits that could be used to purchase other pre-owned items through their service involving websites venjuvo.com, Kmart.Trade4Credit.com and Sears.Trade4Credit.com. Ahead of the curve ealier version of Gazelle.com.

http://www.cnet.com/news/gadget-trade-in-services-that-pay-off/

Saba Social Learning at Saba

A wide range of posts:

http://www.saba.com/us/search/?q=koehn

A wide range of videos:

http://greatamericanstartup.blogspot.com/2011/08/saba-related-blog-posts-index.html

Relaunch of Learn.com as Oracle Learn Cloud:

Big splashes in the first 6-9 months:

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1922260

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/2020966

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/2132580

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/2005750

http://markets.financialcontent.com/stocks/news/read?GUID=23737101

A broad index of coverage:

http://greatamericanstartup.blogspot.com/2014/08/oracle-related-posts-index.html

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Oracle Related Posts: An Index

Modern HR: Enterprise Scale, Cloud-Based Learning ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUf9LDC8kuY

Modern HR in the Cloud
https://blogs.oracle.com/OracleHCM/entry/oracle_learn_cloud_drives_business

Oracle Open World Sessions

https://oracleus.activeevents.com/2013/connect/speakerDetail.ww?PERSON_ID=F502E6C92056BF9BB2A44C0710496D00&tclass=popup

* Meet the Experts: Oracle Taleo Business Edition Cloud Service

https://oracleus.activeevents.com/2013/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=9129&tclass=popup

* Oracle Taleo Learn Cloud Service: Aligning Your HR IT with People Functions

https://oracleus.activeevents.com/2013/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=9104&tclass=popup

OHUG

Aligning the Learning Organization to Business Outcomes with the Oracle Learn Cloud

https://oracleus.activeevents.com/2013/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=9104&tclass=popup

https://twitter.com/jobsitnik/status/344521173083766784

Elearning! Recognizes Oracle for Leadership in Learning and Talent Management
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/2016352

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Angel Mind

I presented at a CINA event last night focused on helping entrepreneurs understand how to start their start-ups. In my presentation I wanted to provide a snapshot in time of how a typical angel might find, process, evaluate, and invest in their deals. To do this I crunched all my data around my current deal flow and recent investments and created tag clouds in Wordle based on the data and the weighting of that data. The result was this presentation in Prezi called Angel Mind. While the shelf life of the accuracy of the Prezi presentation is short...the audience found it useful and entertaining.

ANGEL MIND

ANGEL MIND on Prezi