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Follow Us On TwitterTo Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.” Each week, we share a favorite video of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics. This week, we present Bing Gordon, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, the Chief Creative Officer at Electronic Arts from 1998 to 2008, and a very smart investor.
Posts Tagged ‘Kleiner’
Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed: Bing Gordon
by Scott Edward Walker on January 11th, 2012
How Do I Raise Seed Capital If I Don’t Know Any Investors? – Part 1
by Scott Edward Walker on October 13th, 2010Introduction
As a corporate lawyer for entrepreneurs, I am constantly asked by first-time entrepreneurs: “How do I raise seed capital if I don’t know any investors?” That’s a good question, which I’m going to answer in three parts. This post is part 1 – hustle and build relationships.
5 Common Mistakes in Pitch Decks
by Scott Edward Walker on September 29th, 2010Introduction
As a corporate lawyer for entrepreneurs, I am often asked to review pitch decks. A “pitch deck” is a collection of PowerPoint slides created by an entrepreneur in order to raise funds from (i.e., “pitch”) investors. They can be sent to investors as a stand-alone document (e.g., via email) or they can be used in conjunction with an in-person presentation. I am generally happy to give my input with respect to pitch decks — with the caveat that I’m a lawyer, not an investor. That being said, here are five common mistakes that I see:
Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed: John Doerr
by Scott Edward Walker on August 30th, 2010To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series entitled “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.” Each week, we post a short video clip of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics to help entrepreneurs succeed.
This week, we present legendary investor John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins. Eric Schmidt calls John “one of Google’s best board members”; and Jeff Bezos noted that “Doerr (and Kleiner) is the center of gravity in the Internet.” In this interesting, one-minute clip from 2005 (courtesy of Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner), John discusses how to negotiate valuations with VC’s and related issues. Â
I included this clip as a supplement to my blog post today on VentureBeat in which I advised entrepreneurs that: “[Y]ou need to get out there and effectively pitch a bunch of VC’s in your space and get them excited about your venture. By doing so, you can, in effect, drive the market by creating a competitive environment and playing the VC’s off of each other.” Many thanks, Scott