When Not to Trust Your Gut (HBS Working Knowledge)

"When deciding whether to start a new business, entrepreneurs should use their outsider lens to critically and comprehensively analyze negotiations over land, construction, hiring, and so on. Yet overconfidence remains the norm; in a study by Arnold Cooper of Purdue University, Carolyn Woo of Notre Dame University, and William Dunkelberg of Temple University, more than 80 percent of entrepreneurs estimated their personal chances of success to be 70 percent or higher; one-third of them described their success as certain. If these entrepreneurs adopted the outsider lens, as Kahneman and Lovallo suggest, they easily would find out that the five-year survival rate for new businesses is only about 33 percent!"

"Many intelligent people stake their reputations, large sums of money, and years of their lives on negotiations based largely on intuition and overconfidence. The strong urge to view the world—and ourselves—in a positive light can powerfully affect our decision making in negotiation. "

Q1 / Q2 VC Investments by State (NAVSF)

VC firms shift to early-stage (The Deal.com)

"The number of first sequence deals … marks a five-year high and is yet another signal that VCs are optimistic about making new bets, albeit smaller ones, in companies that have never received any previous investment before," said Darrell Pinto, director of private equity performance at Thomson Financial.

"Overall for the second quarter, startup/early-stage companies accounted for 31% of the deals, expansion stage for 38% and later stage falling to 30%, with first-round companies snatching percentage points from the later-round companies."

Cleantech (Rob Day - Expansion Capital)

Rob points out some obvious discrepancies in cleantech investment stats and links to some interesting articles.

Venture Capitalists Try A More Practical Approach (Wall Street Journal)

"According to Ernst & Young, there were 882 U.S. venture-financed companies as of late 2005 that, like FusionOne, last raised money in 2000 or 2001. While some of those boom-era firms may yet flop, "I don't think all of those are simply going to wilt and go away," says Joseph A. Muscat, an Ernst & Young partner."

VCs Try To Get Down (Wall Street Journal)

I'm not sure what to make of this article, but it is an entertaining read.

Winblad says dollars going to private equity 'frightening' (San Francisco Business Times)

Other interesting comments ...

"We're in an amazing era of innovation," she said. "It means incumbents are victims."

"Her key ingredients to pursuing innovation and building a company are passion, courage, knowledge and a healthy dose of paranoia."

"What Public Companies Can Learn from Private Equity" (.pdf from The Boston Consulting Group)

This article does a nice job of explaining the advantages of private equity and the importance of "getting managers to act like owners."

“Private equity firms have a laserlike focus on creating value within a three-to-five year timeframe. Managers of public companies often criticize this time frame as “too short term.” And yet it is far longer than the time frame one finds at many public companies, where management is prisoner to next quarter’s results.”

"A Boston Consulting Group benchmarking study found that managers at companies bought by private equity have the equivalent of as much as one to two years of salary invested in the business – and receive 8 to 12 times the amount invested upon exit."

VCs see '400 club' as future (Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal)

"The median size of a U.S. venture fund in the first quarter of 2006 was $209 million, up from $77 million just four years ago, according to DowJones VentureOne, while 19 percent of the funds that closed in the quarter exceeded $500 million."

"Thirty percent of venture capital is now allocated to life sciences companies, up from about 10 percent at the height of the tech bubble, according to the National Venture Capital Association."

Securitization: Cash Flow on Tap (CFO.com)

"A popular financing technique, sometimes criticized for its off-balance-sheet treatment, may be skewing cash-flow statements too, says a new report."

"Securitization is a process whereby companies sell receivables — money owed by customers, but not yet collected — for cash. The buyer, typically a special-purpose entity (SPE) created expressly for the purpose, raises funds for the purchase by issuing commercial paper backed by the future stream of money to be collected. The commercial paper often attracts a better rate than the company could by issuing CP of its own, because the sale puts the receivables out of reach of the company's own creditors in the event of bankruptcy.'

(Don't) Look Deep into My Lease (CFO.com)

"Terms can be mesmerizing, but companies get a rude awakening when leasing's real cost is revealed."

Mastering the Presentation Game (BusinessWeek)

Presentation
1. How much does my listener know about my product, service, etc.?
2. What action do I want them to take?
3. Why should they care?

Content
1. Does my presentation grab listeners from the start?
2. Is my message as clear as possible?
3. Is my presentation concise?

Packaging
1. Don't speak in a monotone.
2. Exude confident body language.
3. Dress like a leader.