41–50 of 52 posts
Rand and SEOMoz have been the biggest leaders for the SEO space for years. They've been able to successful communicate the value of SEO in a way no other firm has. And their tools are killer in the hands of a good SEO.
I'm looking forward to what they can do in the next 5 years even without the extra $25 mil.
*edit: working now.
Neil will be kicking himself at some point.
It could be that they loved seomoz but weren't that excited about the industry. Or, like Rand mentioned, they were nervous about the market. The July numbers probably wasn't the reason they pulled out, but it probably was the excuse they used internally to rationalize the decision.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Revenue - if their post is around $85 they need to get to $500mm+ to be a home run the VCs want. That will require a HUGE amount of revenue, most likely $100+.
This is a good point. One interesting thing we found with the more growth-focused funds (and the growth-focused parts of traditional VCs) is that at high valuations and high dollar amounts in, they tend to look for 3-5X returns, rather than 10X. This was a big difference from the 2009 raise we attempted, when everyone was asking that question "how do you get us 10X our money?" vs. 2011, when it was "does this have a…
Why would a Seattle company try to raise in NYC vs. Silicon Valley?
If you read the piece, you can see that we were actually approached by investors in a bunch of geographies - SF, the Valley, Boston, NYC, even San Diego. We ended up signing something with a firm in NY, but were not geographically biased in accepting inbound interest.
Outside of a few excellent firms (mainly seed), all the bad behavior I've ever heard about from VCs has been from NYC and Boston ("east coast") VCs. This was mainly in the 2001-2005 period, but they were at the forefront of really anti-company terms like huge multiple participating pref, walking out on signed term sheets, etc. (USV and Founder Collective are amazing, even more so because they're starkly in contrast with this).
I gotta be honest, that was depressing to read. Why would he want to raise $24mm when he could just build a profitable sales machine from day one, with a Scalable and repeatable sales process ? I think he should read the book _The Lean Startup_ by Eric Ries.
I think you are depressed by what you think you read, not what you actually read. He explains their motivations quite thoroughly (talent is currently available, so for now, cash is their major bottleneck, not scouting). They've also been in business for 30 years (founded 1981). Somehow I don't think they are ignorant of how to run a business. There isn't a moral "right" answer for VC. Taking it isn't a weakness, and…
