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CONTEXTUALLY ADAPTIVE


HEMANG'S BLOG ABOUT STARTUP LIFE AND MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

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 1.  Feb
     20
     
     
     
     A SMALL PRICE FOR FACEBOOK'S MOBILE ASCENDANCY
     
     I'll admit that Whatsapp isn't exactly a household name here in the US.
     Therefore some collective head-scratching might've been in order when you
     read that Facebook paid $19.5B (yes, B, as in BILLION) to acquire the
     Silicon Valley-based mobile messaging startup. In fact, twitter was flooded
     with glib jokes about this deal becoming the latest piece of evidence that
     the bursting of this next bubble is upon us.
     
     Call me a contrarian, but I simply don't see how anyone could find fault
     with Facebook's rationale here. Yes, $19.5B is a lot of money. But in this
     case, it's money very well spent.
     
     Two years ago when Facebook announced filing their S1, there was one
     critique that was heard time and time again. It was that web 2.0
     poster-child Facebook didn't get mobile. In fact, because Facebook was
     behind the curve in mobile, they paid a shocking (at the time) ~$1B to
     acquire mobile darling Instagram.
     
     Fast-forward to yesterday and Facebook now owns three of the
     most ubiquitous mobile apps anywhere. The combination of Facebook +
     Instagram + Whatsapp puts Facebook in just about every smart phone on the
     planet. And to make that happen, Facebook has spent about 11% of it's
     overall market cap. That 11% means that Facebook now owns the world's
     biggest social networking mobile app, photo sharing mobile app and
     messaging mobile app. So where two years ago the critiques were valid, now
     Facebook is the unquestioned 800 lb gorilla in mobile. Or as a16z analyst
     Benedict Evans quipped on twitter, "Facebook is being pretty aggressive in
     making sure it's the next Facebook". 
     
     And beyond the strategic value, the growth numbers for Whatsapp are simply
     mind-boggling. Two year ago the company had ~70M monthly users. A year ago,
     that number had grown to 200M. Now, we know that number to be over 450M. So
     the growth is actually accelerating. In the past four months, Whatsapp
     added 100M user. Today we learned that they're adding over a million users
     each day. All these numbers are too difficult to fathom until you look at
     this chart:
      
     
     
     So how long before Whatsapp blows past Facebook's MAU numbers? A year?
     Less? After all, there are already far more Whatsapp users than there are
     Twitterers. And let's not forget that each of Whatsapp users happily pays
     $1/yr for the app, so it's not long before that revenue is quite
     meaningful.
     
     Chalk this up as a win for Facebook. They are sending a clear message that
     they don't care about what anyone thinks about how they use their currency.
     They're focused on the big prize. Five years from now, is it really that
     hard to imagine that Facebook would have significant mindshare on nearly
     every mobile phone -- globally?? All in, I'd say this is a master stroke
     for Facebook. 
     
     P.S. -- If you haven't read the Forbes story about Whatsapp founder Jan
     Koum, take ten minutes to read it. His journey is incredible and inspiring.
     Here's a guy who came to this country twenty years ago with almost nothing.
     His mom struggled while working hard to make ends meet. At one point they
     even had to collect food stamps. And now this guy is worth $6-7B and will
     be somewhere around #200 on the Forbes list of Global Billionaires. Unreal
     movie script type of stuff. Only in America.  
     
     Agree? Disagree? Still think Facebook paid way too much? Tweet at me on
     Twitter @hemang
     Posted 20th February 2014 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 2.  Sep
     7
     
     
     
     DO ACCELERATORS PROVIDE VALUE?
     
     
     Say what you will about Valleywag, but they're certainly never boring (in
     the same way that car wrecks aren't boring either I suppose). Earlier this
     week, Valleywag outed a NYC accelerator that was at the center of the
     maelstrom in an anonymous posting on David Cohen's blog. 
     
     
     In the anonymous letter that Cohen posted on his site, a founder makes a
     loooooong list of complaints and accusations about the NYC accelerator that
     he entered his startup into. The lesson that Cohen imparts on his blog
     readers is a valid one, which is essentially... caveat emptor. Startups
     should certainly be aware of what they're getting themselves into and do
     their DD before giving away chunks of equity in their company. 
     
     
     But amid all the rumors, innuendo and ensuing heated discussions is a
     pretty darn good debate about the true value provided by most accelerators.
     Sadly, even once you throw out a lot of the hearsay and gossipy BS, you're
     still left with real questions about the benefits that most accelerators
     provide. 
     
     
     The notion of rarely present mentors, poor follow-through on curriculum,
     funding issues, less than ideal working space, and lackluster demo days
     with few real investors is something that's applicable to 90% of the
     accelerators out there. So for that 7% that you're giving up for a tiny
     slice of cash and the supposed pathway to getting your company off the
     ground and funded, are you really getting your money's worth??
     
     
     To me, any founder who has the right entrepreneurial DNA can find great
     quality mentoring from high quality people without paying a dime. There are
     boatloads of good, solid people who've been there/done that who have a
     strong desire to "pay-to-forward". If you as a founder can't figure out how
     to engage with and get some of these people involved with your venture,
     well then you probably aren't cut out for this line of work anyhow. 
     
     
     That's not to say that there aren't very good accelerator programs that
     would provide benefit for some very specific types of startups. Just make
     sure you know why you're really entering one of these programs. It can't
     just be for advice and mentoring, because in the startup world, great
     advice shouldn't cost a thing.
     Posted 7th September 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 3.  Aug
     8
     
     
     
     STARTUP CULTURE, PART TWO: THE PROBLEM WITH BUZZWORDS
     
     Building culture is twofold in that it encompasses tightly embracing the
     principles that you hold dear as well as karate-chopping those you despise.
     For us, that means a lot more doing, less pumping.
     
     
     As such, we've devised a handy list of words that are banned in our
     workplace. Feel free to print out this list and post it in every bathroom
     in your office to ensure that employees know that these words are to be
     avoided by anyone not certified as a brogrammer.
     
     
     THE BLACK LIST 
     
     
      * BOOM! (unless you're talking about the Die Antwoord video [NSFW])
      * Crushing It
      * Ninja/Rockstar/Guru
      * In the Cloud
      * Growth Hacker/Hacking
      * Gamification
      * Viral
      * Pivot
      * Disruptive
      * Revolutionary
     
     Boom! and Crushing It are the ones that make my skin crawl the most. They
     make me want to toss heavy objects at whomever is uttering them. Why?
     Because their overuse has caused them to lose any hint of actual meaning.
     Instead they stand there as vacuous superlatives that people just tack onto
     any which sentence. If you're out there using crappy buzzwords like these,
     it also means that you're probably more focused on pumping up your crappy
     startup than you are on building something meaningful. 
     
     
     So for us, hopefully as a newly born startup, we can focus more on the
     doing, crafting, building part and less on the preening. 
     
     Agree? Disagree? Have more words that you want to add to our blacklist?
     Tweet at me on Twitter @hemang
     Posted 8th August 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 4.  Jul
     29
     
     
     
     GROWING THE RIGHT STARTUP CULTURE / PART ONE
     
     
     I'm at one of my favorite points of time in the lifespan of a new company
     -- at the very embryonic stage where you get to contemplate the overarching
     vision for what your want your new company to be. My co-founders and I have
     spent a lot amount of time talking about the importance of culture and how
     we'll ensure that our company is steeped in a culture that we can be proud
     of. 
     
     
     
     Here's a small sample of some of the things we've codified:
     
     
     
     1. Stop the meeting madness - Every engineer I've worked with has a zone
     where they attain their optimal level of productivity. While in their zone,
     engineers are perhaps five to ten times more productive than at any other
     time. For a startup to be successful, you must ensure that engineers are in
     their zone as much as possible. 
     
     
     Nothing kills being in the zone faster than incessant meetings. I can't
     tell you how many companies I've seen suffering from meeting paralysis
     where it seems like all people ever do is go from one meeting to another.
     Our solution? We'll have two days every week with zero meetings on the
     calendar. If someone absolutely NEEDS to schedule a meeting on one of those
     days, they can do so by paying $50 into our "culture fund". This way,
     they'll think long and hard about how important that meeting really is
     versus the team's overall productivity.
     
     
     2. When you do have meetings, be on time and be focused - How many times
     have you gone to a scheduled meeting only to wait 5-10 minutes for the
     meeting to start because everyone is waiting for one or two people who
     are persistently late? Or how often have you seen a colleague far more
     focused on texting/emailing/web browsing on their phone than on the meeting
     itself? Both items make for meetings that are longer and less productive
     than they should be. To combat this, we have two simple rules. First, no
     phones or laptops during meetings - they get left at your desk. Yeah, sucks
     to have to take notes analog style, but removing distractions is more
     important. Second, if you are late to a meeting, you donate $1 into our
     culture fund for every two minutes you are tardy. I can guarantee you that
     people who are persistently late for meetings will kick the habit
     eventually. 
     
     
     We have quite a few more items of this variety, but I'll save those for
     another post. Let me know what you think so far. I'd also like to hear what
     you've done to make your company culture something you love. 
     
     
     Agree? Disagree? Have something to say? Tweet at me on Twitter @hemang
     Posted 29th July 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 5.  May
     13
     
     
     
     STARTUP EXITS - IT'S ALL BS UNTIL IT'S NOT
     
     Over the past two years or so, I can recount a dozen instances where
     first-time startup founders have reached out to me to discuss something
     that they needed urgent advice on. In each of those cases, the founder had
     gotten an acquisition inquiry from a current or prospective partner and
     they needed to figure out how to handle it. 
     
     
     I'm reminded of this because the topic came up last week when I was
     speaking on a panel at Potomac Tech Wire's Mobile Outlook event. I was
     asked about the most important lesson we learned having been through the
     acquisition process. My answer to this question always has been and always
     will be the same:  It's all total BS until it's not. The vast majority of
     the time, this turns out to be much ado about nothing and the less time you
     spend going down this rabbit hole, the better.
     
     
     As a startup founder, you will at some point be approached by someone whose
     stated interest is in acquiring your company. The first time this happens,
     founders tend to get all aflutter with visions of new Teslas dancing in
     their heads. This is understandable since an exit is the only way founders
     get anything that resembles fair compensation for their time. Momentary
     daydreaming is perfectly innocuous, so long as you don't waste a lot of
     time prior to vetting how real the inquiry is. 
     
     
     So how do you know when the inquiry is real and when to ignore it as noise?
     There are a few tell-tale signs that you should look for. If one or more of
     these signs exist, it's something you need to take seriously and
     investigate further. If not, you should keep focused on your business
     priorities and don't allow yourself to get distracted by the shiny object. 
     
     
     First, any potential acquirer would need to have detailed conversations
     with you about your business. Beyond that, they would also expect that
     you'd have lots of questions about their business and how you fit into it.
     As such, it would be in everyone's interest to have a transactional NDA
     executed between the two parties. Normally, this is not just a boilerplate
     NDA document, but rather one that is crafted by the company's lawyers
     specifically to address the issues that come up during serious M&A
     discussions. The fact that the company took the time to craft a specific
     NDA rather than just giving you something boilerplate speaks volumes.   
     
     
     The next thing to look for is material cost incurred by the acquiring
     company. Acquisitions, even small ones, are risky business. That means any
     serious acquirer will spend money to throughly vet a deal to make sure it's
     a good fit in the longterm. One example of this is when the
     would-be acquirer engages an outside law firm to start working on the deal
     process. Outside counsel isn't cheap, typically costing well north of $500
     per hour. The fact that they're spending the money here indicates some
     serious commitment to moving the process forward. 
     
     
     Another sign to look for is when senior level executives spend significant
     time working on your deal. Senior execs have busy schedules and won't waste
     time unless there's real value. In fact, I first realized that Millennial's
     interest in Condaptive was genuine when I started seeing time being
     expended by C-level execs. After a few early flirtations, I was invited to
     come up to Millennial's headquarters in Baltimore to talk more about how we
     could work together. I had no idea what to expect. When I walked into the
     conference room and saw that their CEO, CFO, COO and CTO were all assembled
     there for our meeting, I knew that this was something I needed to take
     seriously. That was the moment that it went from being all BS to
     something significantly more. 
     
     
     
     
     Agree? Disagree? Have something to say? Tweet at me on Twitter @hemang
     
     Posted 13th May 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 6.  May
     2
     
     
     
     THE MENTORSHIP VACUUM IN THE #DCTECH COMMUNITY
     
     
     
     
     (credit to Valerie Coffman for a more apropos image)
     
     Over the past year or two, it's become far too fashionable for people to
     work in and around tech startups. So much so that we now have legions of
     wantrepreneurs and “community builders” who want to find their fame and
     fortune within the startup universe. And to some degree, that's absolutely
     awesome. The more people involved in the startup world, the better and I’m
     all for being inclusive of people who genuinely want to learn and grow
     within the ecosystem.
     
     
     Unfortunately, I see a downside of this as well. Mostly because we now have
     far too many people who have never built or worked for a tech startup who
     have morphed into “thought leaders” or “mentors” within our nascent startup
     community. In my view, this does a great disservice to nurturing the young
     entrepreneurs who are just starting on their entrepreneurial journey.
     
     
     Why? A few reasons from where I’m sitting.
     
     
     First, there’s a clear degradation in the signal-to-noise ratio, which
     means that young entrepreneurs have a harder time getting to something of
     value in terms of content. There’s a lot more noise from people who have no
     idea how to build stuff but seem to have lots to say about this topic.
     Young entrepreneurs will mistake puffery for good advice and take far
     longer to learn lessons that could’ve been ingested far more efficiently.
     
     
     We also have to ask ourselves if we’re being deluded into believing that
     there is not a massive vacuum in mentorship in this region. Folks who have
     big success in building their startup seem to regularly disappear from the
     local tech community. Here in DC, we have a ton of people who have sold
     their company for $100MM+, and yet only a small percentage of them are
     engaged with mentorship in any meaningful way. Just imagine what type of
     rich experience and knowledge someone like this brings to any tech scene.
       
     
     
     Maybe it’s because we’re complacent about what passes as mentorship
     nowadays. Maybe we don’t take the extra ten steps to rope in the people
     who’ve had big success and make sure they stay engaged in the community.
     Maybe it’s because these true titans don’t see that the community actually
     needs them to stay engaged and they don’t see an obvious role for
     themselves. We must do better. We must do a better job not just celebrating
     the huge successes we have but also making sure these people know that they
     are very much needed as active members of our community and that there is
     an important role that we need them to play. 
     
     
     I should disclose that for me, this is something of a personal issue. As
     someone who has had some success in the past and is now looking to start
     his third startup, having very senior level mentorship would be of
     tremendous value. I’m actually fortunate since I do have a number of people
     who I can call upon whose depth of experience is much richer and deeper
     than mine. But I could definitely use more. And there is no doubt in my
     mind that the younger entrepreneurs starting out could certainly use more.
     A lot more. 
     Posted 2nd May 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
     1
     
     
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 7.  Apr
     25
     
     
     
     WHY I LOVE ZOMBIE VCS
     
     
     If you're anything like me, you've probably heard the term Zombie VC
     bandied about in various conversations recently. This all started a few
     weeks ago when Danielle Morrill started a bit of a shitstorm with her blog
     post which was entitled Zombie VCs. In it, Morrill formulates a list of VCs
     who haven't been doing a whole lot of investing lately according to recent
     Crunchbase data. Morrill's point was seemingly confirmed by Dan Primack's
     post earlier this week where he references data that illustrates an 80%(!!)
     contraction in the number of active VCs in just the past twelve years. 
     
     Methodology aside (see Fred Destin's related post), every entrepreneur I
     know has experienced frustration with Zombie VCs over the past few years.
     At the end of those interactions, entrepreneurs inevitably felt duped for
     having wasted precious time during their fundraising cycle. It's no
     surprise then that the conventional remedy being prescribed to
     entrepreneurs amidst all this chatter is to steer clear of the Zombie VCs. 
     
     I'm here to tell you that this is terrible advice. In fact, Zombie VCs are
     an invaluable resource that every entrepreneur needs to leverage to the
     hilt. Why just meet with one Zombie VC when you can meet with a dozen? I
     say this with complete sincerity because Zombie VCs can provide you a high
     value, low risk service that you won't find anywhere else. Namely, they can
     give you critically important real-world pitch practice that no amount of
     prep work can replicate. 
     
     Even if you've practiced your pitch in the mirror a hundred times, you'll
     be amazed by how much you learn from your first five VC meetings. You'll
     figure out what tempo works best for you as you're presenting. You'll learn
     how to handle interruptions that you weren't expecting. You'll hear a
     variety of tough questions that you hadn't thought of. Most importantly,
     you'll develop confidence while getting real feedback on the overall
     efficacy of your pitch. Write down every question, every comment and soak
     it all in. You'll use these invaluable insights to iterate upon your pitch
     until you get it to a place where it feels just right. 
     
     And what better audience to have for you first few (highly imperfect)
     pitches than the non-check-writing-but-surprisingly-eager-to-take-meetings
     Zombie VC? Wouldn't you rather that your worst performances -- the ones
     where you're still honing your craft -- are in front of investors that you
     know will never invest? This is precisely why it's so important to rank
     your prospective investors. Of course, you should be mindful of why you're
     having these meetings and don't allow yourself to get sucked into the
     vortex of follow-ups beyond the initial meeting. If the Zombie persists in
     wanting to follow-up, tell them honestly that your goal for the first
     meeting was to solicit feedback and to get to know their firm a little bit.
     And be sure to say thank you. Because the Zombie helped you more than you
     would've ever imagined.
     
     Now go meet with some Zombies.
     
     
     Agree? Disagree? Have something to say? Tweet at me on Twitter @hemang 
     Posted 25th April 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 8.  Apr
     22
     
     
     
     MAVA TECHBUZZ & DIVERSITY OF VIEWS IN SEED INVESTING
     
     On Tuesday, April 23rd, I'll be participating in a CEO/Investor panel at
     the MAVA TechBUZZ Spring event in Bethesda. There are some great speakers
     throughout the day and the attendee list looks really impressive. It should
     be an excellent learning opportunity for all of you early stage founders
     who want insight on how to go from zero to seed with your startup. 
     
     But what I'm most excited about is the vast diversity of seed-stage
     investors that will be on the panel I'm participating in. There will be a
     few angel investors (like me) who are focused on fostering the local tech
     ecosystem. There are folks from traditional venture funds, who likely have
     defined methods for how they evaluate seed stage opportunities. You'll also
     get the perspective of two folks who help run state funded venture funds
     (MD Venture Fund & CIT), which tend to have different investment criteria
     than traditional venture. And finally you have someone representing the
     corp dev and strategic side and who likely views opportunities through an
     entirely different lens. 
     
     The great thing about this assortment of views is that the sixteen
     companies pitching will get wide-ranging opinions that reflect the unique
     interests and roles of the panelists. It's a pretty good bet that no two
     panelists will have the same criteria for what defines a good investment.
     This dynamic mirrors what you'll see in the real world. Nearly every
     investor you'll meet has their own unique criteria as to what makes for a
     good investment. What one investor sees as prince, another will see as a
     toad. Where one sees clear sailing, another will see stormy seas. 
     
     When you're out there pitching your early stage company to investors it's
     important that you don't lose sight of this dynamic. You're going to hear a
     fair number of investors saying "no". Don't get discouraged. Your company
     isn't necessarily broken or ugly. It may just not be the right fit for that
     particular investor. Keep improving your pitch, keep getting detailed
     feedback from every meeting, and make sure you take the time to understand
     how each investor you meet with defines their investment criteria. With the
     right approach and sufficient effort, you should be able to find an
     investor who sees the big opportunity in what you're working on. 
     
     Later on this week, I'll be posting how I define my own investment criteria
     for angel investing. Subscribe to the blog feed and stay tuned!
     Posted 22nd April 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 9.  Apr
     20
     
     
     
     RANKING POTENTIAL INVESTORS
     
     It's incredibly important to figure out which investors are the right
     investors for your startup. As you've probably heard, fundraising is an
     all-encompassing, time consuming, pain-in-the-you-know-where process. It
     always takes longer than you think. And unfortunately  most of us waste a
     hefty chunk of time on pitching the wrong investors -- people you have no
     hope of ever collecting a check from. 
     
     
     
     The goal then, is to avoid those time-sucking meetings and to focus your
     time on investors who are more likely to invest in your startup. Because
     the less time you spend on fundraising, the sooner you can go back to
     spending your time and energy on actually building your company. 
     
     
     
     In order to do that you first have to rank all of your potential investors
     to figure out who you should spend your time chasing down. And notice that
     I keep saying "investors" and not "VC firm". The reason for that is that
     while the history and reputation of a VC firm is important, ultimately it's
     about the individual partner that you're going to be working with.
     
     
     So then what is the criteria for ranking potential investors? When we were
     looking to raise an A round for Condaptive, here's how I went about the
     ranking process: 
      1. The Laundry List -- Start by making a long long list of all potential
         firms that you think are reasonable targets. Make sure you factor the
         stage at which these firms invest when you're putting together the
         list. If a firm only does later stage deals and you're raising a seed
         round, it's a waste of time to talk to a partner there.
      2. The Qualifier -- The single most important criteria is what I call "The
         Qualifier". If your research indicates that a firm or individual angel
         fails the qualifier, remove them from your list immediately. The
         question is simply: are they really & truly investing money nowadays?
         To figure this out, use a combination of Crunchbase and Google (or
         simply ask) and you should be able to quickly determine how frequently
         the investor is putting money into new investments (not follow-ons, NEW
         investments). If you don't see any new investments in the past two or
         three quarters, it's not likely to be a fruitful lead for you.  This is
         especially true of angel investors. For some reasons, lots of wannabe
         angels spend time taking meetings even when they haven't cut a check
         for a very long time (if ever). 
      3. The Fit -- Once you've eliminated all the prospects who aren't cutting
         checks, the biggest part of my criteria is how well an individual
         partner & the firm fit your company. Start by looking at their
         portfolio. Do they invest in the vertical that you're in? Some VCs only
         do consumer deals, so no matter how great your enterprise software
         company is, it won't be a good fit. Some of the best VCs have outlined
         the "themes" that they invest in right on their websites. Do you fit
         one of those themes? Nearly every investor uses investment hypotheses,
         and if you don't fit into one of these hypotheses, you won't get a
         check.  Have they funded a potential direct competitor of yours? If so,
         most VCs won't create a conflict for themselves -- even if they might
         happily take the meeting (you can imagine why this could be very bad
         for you). Do they have domain expertise, connections and credibility in
         your space? That could be very helpful for you in the long run. Can you
         tell anything about their culture that might indicate whether you'd
         have good or bad chemistry? Do they have a reputation for making fast
         decisions or do they take forever? Are they widely respected by
         entrepreneurs and other investors? 
      4. Geo Rationalization -- While the fit is clearly the most important
         thing to consider, don't overlook geography. Investors tend to have
         clear patterns in where they will invest and if your startup isn't in
         one of these places, you'll have a hard time convincing them that you
         should be the first check they cut for that geography. The reason for
         this is simple. For VCs, investing often means taking board seats.
         Board seats mean board meetings -- normally the in-person variety. For
         angels, they prefer investing in their own back yard. Most of them are
         investing to foster the startup ecosystem, and they normally want to
         focus that effort in the community they live/work in. With all that
         said, you shouldn't be dissuaded from pursuing that cross-country
         investor who you've heard so many good things about. But, make sure
         they have a history of investing in stuff in your area. I know of a
         fair number of west coast VCs who happen to have a decent number of
         east coast investments in their portfolio. Those guys already have to
         travel east for board meetings and other business. For them, geo is
         less of an issue than for their colleagues whose portfolio is comprised
         solely of companies that are within one hour flight time.
      5. The Warmer Intro -- It's a pretty good bet that investors are far more
         likely to invest in people they already know. In fact, you're probably
         10x more likely to get an investment from an investor who knows you
         than from one you met for the first time yesterday. But because you
         have only a few investors you know personally, you'll have to rely on
         getting "warm intros" to others on your list. The warm intro is
         incredibly important. If an investor doesn't know you personally,
         they're not likely to respond to your email or take your phone calls.
         You can waste a lot of time this way. They will however respond to your
         email if you can find someone the investor does know and trust and get
         that person to make an introduction for you. The better the investor
         knows this person, the more seriously they'll take you. For that
         reason, it makes a ton of sense to make sure that you get an intro from
         someone who has a real relationship and past history with the investor
         you want the intro to. Be picky in who you ask to make intros. Because
         an intro from the right person will not just help you get your foot in
         the door, but it can help you even more as you get further down the
         path. 
     
     Now that you know all of the criteria, make good use of it. For us, we put
     all of this data into a spreadsheet that we used as a way to track our
     communication & progress with various investors. Here's what my spreadsheet
     looked like:
      
     
     Note that the "Score" wasn't just a straight adding of each criteria. We
     actually weighted each criteria since some were more important than
     others. 
     
     
     
     
     The other HUGE way that this ranking was helpful for us was that it told us
     which meetings to pursue and when to pursue them. This was extremely
     important! When you're first starting to pitch, you do NOT want to pitch
     investors who are at the very top of your rankings. No, you need a lot of
     practice first. You need to hone your pitch, listen to a bunch of questions
     that other people ask you, revise your deck a few times and make sure you
     really have the whole thing down to a science. Only then do you want to
     pitch the high value guys. So your first meetings should be with people who
     aren't nearly as high up on your rankings. Use those meetings to work out
     the kinks and get good feedback. Practice your pitch every opportunity you
     get. Only then will you be at your best for the meetings that really count.
     Posted 20th April 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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 10. Apr
     19
     
     
     
     ANOTHER RESOLUTION TO WRITE MORE...
     
     In the weeks and months after my company Condaptive was acquired by
     Millennial Media. I thought a lot about all of the things I learned in the
     entire startup process from A to M (we hadn't quite gotten to Z yet). I
     made a long list about all fo the topics I wanted to write about and told
     myself that I was going to get better about blogging/tweeting and generally
     being more productive within the startup community. Well, if you're reading
     this blog now, you can see that never really happened. I keep making
     resolutions to write regularly, and keep finding other things that take
     priority.
     
     I mention this because Paul Singh asked a question on one of the Facebook
     group boards that we're in together about how to stack investors. That
     happens to be one of the topics that I jotted down, so I figured it's time
     to make yet another resolution about writing more.
     
     Before I get started, there are a lot of people who can offer you
     incredible advice because they've seen a situation a thousand times and
     have expertise in the startup space. I'm not one of those people. I'll just
     tell you about my experience and what we went through in starting, building
     and selling a startup, and hopefully there's some insight there for you to
     glean.
     
     With all of those disclaimers in place...
     Posted 19th April 2013 by Hemang Gadhia
     
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About Me
About Me
Hemang was the Founder & CEO of Condaptive, a mobile ad tech startup that
derived behavioral insights by deploying advanced data mining techniques while
processing exceptionally large data sets. Within a year of its founding,
Condaptive was acquired by Millennial Media, a leading mobile advertising
network.

After the acquisition, Hemang was SVP Audience Intelligence for Millennial Media
where he and his team were responsible for building the industry’s most advanced
data intelligence platform. Millennial’s data platform was the industry’s first
solution that allowed advertisers and developers to leverage advanced audience
targeting in generating highly relevant mobile experiences.

Given his background with data and digital advertising, Hemang is a frequent
speaker at industry conferences and events. He is also an active angel investor
& advisor for early stage startups focused on building technology that relates
to mobile, ad tech or big data. Hemang lives in the DC area with his beautiful
wife and two amazing kids. While he is a truly terrible golfer, he enjoys the
game and aspires to be slightly less terrible at some point in the future.


<img width="150" height="150"
src="https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/2883766316/895b6007dcc75aea8de12f245cb9cfa3.png"
align="left" hspace="15" /><span style=" ; font-size:100%;">Hemang was the
Founder & CEO of Condaptive, a mobile ad tech startup that derived behavioral
insights by deploying advanced data mining techniques while processing
exceptionally large data sets. Within a year of its founding, Condaptive was
acquired by Millennial Media, a leading mobile advertising
network.<br/><br/>After the acquisition, Hemang was SVP Audience Intelligence
for Millennial Media where he and his team were responsible for building the
industry’s most advanced data intelligence platform. Millennial’s data platform
was the industry’s first solution that allowed advertisers and developers to
leverage advanced audience targeting in generating highly relevant mobile
experiences.<br/><br/>Given his background with data and digital advertising,
Hemang is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events. He is also an
active angel investor & advisor for early stage startups focused on building
technology that relates to mobile, ad tech or big data. Hemang lives in the DC
area with his beautiful wife and two amazing kids. While he is a truly terrible
golfer, he enjoys the game and aspires to be slightly less terrible at some
point in the future.<br/><br/></span>

Blog Archive
Blog Archive
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