Based in Austin after 25 years in Silicon Valley, New York & London. My best advice to founders, VCs and members of the startup ecosystem to get ahead: spend 30% of your time doing favors for other people asking for nothing in return. The remaining 70% of your time will be a min 2x more effective giving you a 1.4x boost on your efforts. Raised $48m+ for startups I founded by the age of 28 years old. General Partner, 7BC Venture Capital, General Partner, Rubicon Venture Capital (now fully deployed with 7BC currently investing in growth follow-on rounds of Rubicon portfolio companies). Key differentiators: 1) a sizable network of angel LPs that are VC-backed founders in Silicon Valley, NYC, Austin, Seattle, LA, San Diego and across the US as well as London, Stockholm, Paris, Zurich, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Africa and across LatAm, footprint of active LPs across 6 continents ready to support our startups, 2) corporate network and expertise on CVC give us access to CEOs and c-suites of large corporates and conglomerates which enables us to add value to our startups, 3) track record in top 10% to 12.5% of US VC fund performance.
Experience as a VC, founder and CEO of VC-backed tech ventures, biz dev and sales director, investment banker advising startups and VCs on fundraising and M&A, active angel investor and university professor on Entrepreneurship & VC. Author of two books on VC that are typically both in the top 10 on Amazon and my latest book on blockchain, fintech and digitization of data-driven workflows. Advisor to corporates and governments on VC, CVC and FinTech. I am also a Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital at Chapman University. In addition to teaching a class on VC & entrepreneurship at Chapman University one of California’s oldest universities, I have lectured on VC at Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Santa Clara University, UC San Diego, Georgetown University, London Business School, Imperial College London, University of Bologna, Moscow State University, Tsinghua University Beijing & Shanghai University.
