By Harriette Halepis Warren Buffet said it best when he told a Forbes reporter seeking investment advice to “stick to what you know.” While simple, this golden rule has made Buffet a rich man. Buffet’s number one rule can be adopted by any investor and applied to any kind of investment. Sticking with what you know and understand will keep your investments solid while also giving you a distinct advantage.
By Harriette Halepis Warren Buffet said it best when he told a Forbes reporter seeking investment advice to “stick to what you know.” While simple, this golden rule has made Buffet a rich man. Buffet’s number one rule can be adopted by any investor and applied to any kind of investment. Sticking with what you know and understand will keep your investments solid while also giving you a distinct advantage.
Posted Feb 17, 2012Article Originally Post By GROW VC In order for public companies to work there needs to be private markets. Markets that are successful and creating quality and successful entrepreneurs and investors. Without private markets doing well, nothing goes public and the public markets invariably suffer. That's the nature of the game. One fuels the other and creates a co-dependent ecosystem. Neither can truly exist without the other. These funding markets however are important for more than just the companies the get funded, or that find exits. For all the smaller companies that may not be moving toward exit, a proper funding markets still provides them with exposure. For the long term sustainable companies that aren't looking for immediate exit, they need the short term, built to sell companies to survive. The funding markets hahve to work inconjunction with each other. To read the full article and GROW VC's 5 points click here.
Posted Feb 16, 2012
By Jamie Clarke There is always a lot of talk of what you, as an investor, expect to see out of an entrepreneur. How they act, what they present, the documentation they have to have in order. But chances are, investors are unsure of what the entrepreneur is looking for in the investor. Which stands to reason, in the way the relationships forms between entrepreneur and investor it's fairly typical that the balance of power lies with the investor. After all, they are the one with the money.
Posted Feb 15, 2012
Article originally written by David Cohen of Techstars The team at Ask The VC was posed with a question that most entrepreneur faces at some point down their road toward fund raising, and luckily David Cohen had an answer ready and waiting. What do you do when someone begins to express interest in your company? It's a question that would dog any first time entrepreneur, and even the seasoned investor. The stakes change all the time, but the process for both investor and entrepreneur is going to look fairly similar. For investors, you're always going to want to know the processes that your entrepreneurs will be going through as they push forward with a potential acquisition, typically because this means a liquidity event for you.
Posted Feb 14, 2012
By Patrick Burke Now may be the time to act on the next big thing, but you’ll need to rack up some frequent-flier miles in order to get to the action. There has been plenty of buzz swirling around Vietnam recently, and the country is luring online entrepreneurs and investors looking to tap into a rapidly growing Internet user base. In 2010, 27 percent of the Vietnamese population was online.
Posted Feb 14, 2012
Recent Published by GROW VC - The 3 delusions of an entrepreneur, as established by GROW VC, are important for every investor to realize. Chances are, these delusions are something that investors and entrepreneurs have in common. Ranging from "Once things settle down" to "From 8 AM To Exit" the article explores some of the misconceptions of being an entrepreneur, and often some of the attitudes that hinder and handicap success. For investors the message is two-fold: Watch out for these traits in entrepreneurs, and don't fall in to the trap yourself.
Posted Feb 13, 2012By Linda Doell When examining a startup investment opportunity, there are some things that need to be assessed before agreeing to sign over money. Investing in a startup is a risky enough business -- most startups fail in the first five years -- without first taking some precautions and applying some scrutiny to ensure the best possible investment. Bu...
Posted Jan 31, 2012By Mark Di Vincenzo The legendary football coach Vince Lombardi said, “Leaders are not born, they're made.” Angel investors don’t care. When angels are evaluating the founder of a company that intrigues them, they just want to know if the leader is actually a leader. How can they tell? Here are six personality traits that any angel...
Posted Jan 30, 2012By Linda Doell It's time to look in the mirror. Investors are familiar with the ritual of examining every piece of a startup from the character of the co-founders to the smallest expenditure. The process reveals the opportunities strengths and weaknesses and informs the investors decisions and course of action. But few investors can turn the...
Posted Jan 25, 2012By Harriette Halepis The predictions surrounding American car companies are positive, but should investors place a good deal of hope in these auto manufacturers? First, two very important details should be considered: foreign automobile recovery and a rise in purchases based on necessity. The recent news that Ford Motor Co. plans to open a research...
Posted Jan 24, 2012Article Originally Post By GROW VC In order for public companies to work there needs to be private markets. Markets that are successful and creating quality and successful entrepreneurs and investors. Without private markets doing well, nothing goes public and the public markets invariably suffer. That's the nature of the game. One fuels the other and creates a co-dependent ecosystem. Neither can truly exist without the other. These funding markets however are important for more than just the companies the get funded, or that find exits. For all the smaller companies that may not be moving toward exit, a proper funding markets still provides them with exposure. For the long term sustainable companies that aren't looking for immediate exit, they need the short term, built to sell companies to survive. The funding markets hahve to work inconjunction with each other. To read the full article and GROW VC's 5 points click here.
Posted Feb 16, 2012Article originally written by David Cohen of Techstars The team at Ask The VC was posed with a question that most entrepreneur faces at some point down their road toward fund raising, and luckily David Cohen had an answer ready and waiting. What do you do when someone begins to express interest in your company? It's a question that would dog any first time entrepreneur, and even the seasoned investor. The stakes change all the time, but the process for both investor and entrepreneur is going to look fairly similar. For investors, you're always going to want to know the processes that your entrepreneurs will be going through as they push forward with a potential acquisition, typically because this means a liquidity event for you.
Posted Feb 14, 2012By Patrick Burke Now may be the time to act on the next big thing, but you’ll need to rack up some frequent-flier miles in order to get to the action. There has been plenty of buzz swirling around Vietnam recently, and the country is luring online entrepreneurs and investors looking to tap into a rapidly growing Internet user base. In 2010, 27 percent of the Vietnamese population was online.
Posted Feb 14, 2012
By: Jamie Clarke Startups are putting Canada on the map. And not wishy-washy startups either, we're talking big names and players like Zite, Summify and Flickr. These are just a few of the names of industry leaders that are putting Canada and our startups in lights across the world. But that presents a problem, and a massive opportunity for Canadian investors.
Posted Feb 13, 2012Article originally appears via www.gust.com. Author: Martin Zwilling. If you startup is your dream, why would you want to think about an exit? It’s going to be so successful and so much fun that you don’t need to think about what comes after. Wrong. There are two very real and practical reasons why you need to plan an exit:
Posted Feb 10, 2012By Harriette Halepis Warren Buffet said it best when he told a Forbes reporter seeking investment advice to “stick to what you know.” While simple, this golden rule has made Buffet a rich man. Buffet’s number one rule can be adopted by any investor and applied to any kind of investment. Sticking with what you know and understand will keep your investments solid while also giving you a distinct advantage.
Posted Feb 17, 2012By Jamie Clarke There is always a lot of talk of what you, as an investor, expect to see out of an entrepreneur. How they act, what they present, the documentation they have to have in order. But chances are, investors are unsure of what the entrepreneur is looking for in the investor. Which stands to reason, in the way the relationships forms between entrepreneur and investor it's fairly typical that the balance of power lies with the investor. After all, they are the one with the money.
Posted Feb 15, 2012
By Patrick Burke One of the more difficult aspects in deciding to finance a startup is distinguishing a valuable idea from one that is sure to fade. Due diligence can be a daunting, dissecting business plans and a startup’s hard data is time-consuming, and substantial time and effort are often invested in a concept or product that was flawed from the outset.
Posted Feb 13, 2012
By Harriette Halepis It comes as a bit of a shock to hear: Mikael Hed, CEO of Angry Birds-maker Rovio, said his company isn't worried about piracy. In fact, Hed believes that Rovio, and startups like it, have much to learn from the mistakes made by preceding game makers that paid piracy too much concern. What lesson has Rovio learned? Addressing an audience of reporters and music industry moguls, as reported by CNET, Hed stated that his company aims to "stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans." After all, fans are the number one reason why a game like Angry Birds still enjoys success two years after its initial launch.
Posted Feb 10, 2012By: Jamie Clarke 2011 saw Venture funding rise 22% in terms of dollars raised from 2010. This is compared to there only being a 4% increasing in deals funded. For consumer technology companies especially, the funding is present and available, and more startups are getting funded at higher rates.
Posted Feb 8, 2012By Linda Doell If last year is any indicator of things to come, expect the information technology and tech startups to continue to draw the attention and backing of venture capital investment. Just look at the numbers. Canadian technology companies that sough VC funding did well in 2011, with funding 30% more raised than the previous year. Canadian firms also benefitted from cross-border deals in the United States. According to a MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Reuters, venture capitalist investments south of the border in the United States clocked in at .4 billion in 3,673 deals in 2011. The investment amount was an increase of 22% from the previous year and represents the third highest annual investment total in the past 10 years.
Posted Feb 7, 2012By Linda Doell When looking at venture capital investments for 2012, the saying, is the glass half-empty or half-full comes into play. Talk to Canadian venture capitalists and a majority of them will look with optimism at their half-full glasses at the begining of 2012. Ask the opinion of venture capitalists south of the border in the United...
Posted Jan 27, 2012
The numbers may be surprising to some. Surely Angels investors won't take the information as a surprise, to the rest, well it may seem out of left field. According to the Wall Street Journal, Angel Investors in the United States, in 2009, invested .7 Billion. The number itself is significant, but even more so when you compared to the .7...
Posted Jan 25, 2012By Linda Doell Despite the global economic quagmire, venture capital’s life science sector experience robust growth in Canada in 2011, a trend that is expected to continue this year. Look no farther than the number for the third quarter 2011 in a Thomson Reuters report prepared for the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity...
Posted Jan 23, 2012By Harriette Halepis The creation of mobile apps largely dominated business models in 2011. This year, mobile apps are still important in addition to the creation of mobile advertising. 2011 proved to be the year of the mobile app. With hundreds of thousands of apps surfacing on the Apple and Android platforms (not to mention BlackBerry, Windows,...
Posted Jan 20, 2012