Two Venture Capitalists Help Entrepreneurs

Here are two "must view" videos for all early-in-their-entrepreneur-career entrepreneurs!

Venture Capital Crash Course with Jason Mendelson from Andrew on Vimeo.

Jason Mendolson opens the door for any entrepreneur to see the inner workings of a real live venture capitalist in the extended presentation.

Jason Mendelson and his partner Brad Feld and are the co-authors of AsktheVC. Brad and Jason have been working together since 2000 when Jason joined Mobius Venture Capital, a venture capital firm that Brad co-founded. They started writing together on Brad's Feld Thoughts blog in 2005 with their Term Sheet series. After several other series about issues facing venture capital backed companies, Jason and Brad decided to start AsktheVC. Brad and Jason, along with three other partners have recently founded a new venture firm, the Foundry Group located in Boulder, Colorado.

In nine videos which are all on YouTube Fred Wilson describes his history and development as a Venture Capitalist to a group of students from InSITE (Investments from Student Interaction with Technology and Entrepreneurs).

Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures and publisher of A VC, Musings of a VC in NYC

Venture Capital "Walking Dead" Lists

Alert to entrepreneurs: Do your own due diligence! Here is a good question to ask the VC you are pitching. Ask them whether they are actually capable of funding your venture?

In March Dan Primack of PE Hub blogged a list of venture capital firms he termed the “VC Walking Dead” — firms that by all indication appear to be still in business but lack the cash to bring new investments on board. Camille Ricketts of VentureBeat just published The VC walking dead: Extended edition a fresh look at the Venture Capital industry that tries to sort those that merely appear dead from those that are in fact "among the walking dead".

And this just in from the National Venture Capital Association as reported by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch - Venture Capital Fundraising Is Down Nearly 40 Percent In First Quarter of 2009. Schonfeld had recently reported on poor Venture Capital results across the board in Q1.

Are you working for a startup and don’t know when to quit?

By devbloke | CodeLathe Blog

"If it has been more than 5 years and the company has not become profitable, quit. Take your losses. Invest your experience and time in another company. Even better, start your own company."