As a VC, I end up meeting some amazing people of many different backgrounds and profiles.  But there are two categories of people which are tightly correlated, but distinctly different.  The difference between what I’d call an “Inventor,” someone who […]

When was the last time all of your startup’s management team came together to take a step back from day-to-day minutiae and think big picture?  I think it’s actually incredibly valuable for startups to occasionally, and regularly, have offsite planning […]

VCs rarely go into an entrepreneur’s pitch meeting with a completely open mind. Of course they have biases given their past experiences, like with any human interaction. More importantly, though, they have biases about whether or not they are going […]

People ask us at NextView all of the time: “What is the typical profile of an entrepreneur in your portfolio?”  Subtly behind that question is often one about the experience-level of the founders.  The answer, however, doesn’t fit into a […]

Over the past decade, VCs have been lamenting about the poor state of the IPO markets and that the number of real potential acquirers for consumer internet startups has dwindled down to a handful, if that.  Many of formerly rich […]

It always feels anachronistic these days to exchange business cards when you usually have someone’s contact information anyway in an electronic format before (via email introduction) or just after (via LinkedIn connection) you meet.  Many people, though, take the opportunity […]

We at NextView have been thinking about and looking for investments in seed-stage startups which leverage the megatrend of transitioning computing away from a standard fixed-web PC world.  Of course that includes “mobile-first” applications and companies which ride the adoption […]

When I first started in the VC business in 2004, I usually shared some reactions with entrepreneurs whenever we passed on pursuing an investment, but I admittedly erred towards communicating generic thoughts that were fairly non-specific but perhaps mildly helpful.  […]

Given communication tools and an array of online services which foster and empower remote working, many startups are successfully building and creating product with teams all around the world.  Here at NextView, we typically invest in companies headquartered along the […]

When we started NextView Ventures, we deliberately took time during our first offsite  together to define a shared sense of “Ethos” which we are going to use as guiding principles in building our firm. All five of them (Authentic, Blank […]