PinnedNow Is the Time to Play OffenseFor the past six months, there has been a lot of handwringing about the market downturn. Most everyone has been advising entrepreneurs to marshal their capital, cut costs, and extend their runway. In essence, play defense. Many investors have been creating a whiplash effect with their portfolio companies. As one…5 min read5 min read
Apr 13The Rocket Ship Startup List — 2023Where to Land…in Startupland Each spring I provide a comprehensive list of exciting, fast-growing, rapidly hiring startups that are promising places to start or continue a career in Startupland. This year has been a challenging year for tech. Layoffs and cutbacks have become the norm. …3 min read3 min read
Nov 28, 2022Entrepreneurs Should Embrace Radical Transparency and AccountabilityThere is a lot of hand-wringing and navel-gazing going on in Startupland with the denouement of two of the largest scandals the industry has ever seen: Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes (sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud) and FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried (vaporized $32 billion of value through mismanagement and fraudulent…5 min read5 min read
May 23, 2022Meet our Newest Teammate, Cheraé Robinson, Flybridge’s Head of CommunityAdding a Head of Community to the Flybridge family has been a goal for a while as we continue to double down on our belief that communities create competitive advantage. We even wrote a book on this topic (or at least an eBook): The Community Playbook for Founders. Thus, we…3 min read3 min read
May 9, 2022For VC Investors, Illiquidity Is a Feature Not a BugLast week the firm I co-founded, Flybridge, announced that we had raised our latest set of funds ($150 million across a seed fund and an opportunities fund), crossed $1 billion in assets under management, and celebrated our 20-year anniversary. These milestones for our firm come at a time when the…6 min read6 min read
May 4, 2022Flybridge 2022We are pleased to announce that Flybridge has raised a pair of new, oversubscribed funds with aggregate commitments of $150 million to continue our mission of backing ambitious founders at the pre-seed and seed stage. …3 min read3 min read
Apr 8, 2022The Rocket Ship Startup List — 2022 Edition(you can find the 2023 Rocket Ship Startup List here) As many of you know, each spring I provide a comprehensive list of exciting, fast-growing, rapidly hiring startups that are promising places to start or continue a career in Startupland. This year has been another boom year for tech startups…Startup3 min readStartup3 min read
Published inDigital Diplomacy·Mar 3, 2022Echoes of (My) History in UkraineIt has been a hard week to focus on startupland. My usual daily obsession with new innovations, new entrepreneurs, and new fundings has been replaced with daily reports of bombs, convoys, and sanctions as Ukraine struggles for its survival. …3 min read3 min read
Feb 3, 2022What We Have Learned from Backing 100 Companies Founded By WomenThis week, Valentina Ratner (formerly Toll Villagra), co-founder and CEO of AllSpice, announced the company’s $3.2M seed financing. AllSpice is essentially building “Github for hardware” — a collaboration hub inspired by software principles, powered by Git, and designed to accelerate hardware development. Apart from being a talented team with a…3 min read3 min read
Jan 4, 2022Are VCs Racist? Explaining The Capital GapOver the holidays, there was a bit of a firestorm on Twitter over comments made by venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale of 8VC regarding VCs and racism. The original tweets and resulting dialog inspired me to write this post in an attempt to address the question that was posed: how do…11 min read11 min read
