My guest on Ask a VC this week was Dana Stalder of Matrix Partners, a newbie in the venture world, but a seasoned manager and entrepreneur in Valley Internet circles.
Stalder answered a range of reader questions including basic advice for pitching Matrix and how Google failing to acquire Groupon impacted the social commerce space. (Matrix is an investor in the number three player BuyWithMe and Gilt Groupe.)
Every week I’m getting more tactical questions from entrepreneurs in the trenches, so I wanted to get as many in as possible. We also talk about opportunities to save the doomed media business, the curse of crossing your fingers and hoping for advertising revenues, when to take money from angels vs. VCs, what entrepreneurs should not use venture capital money on, and why– for better or for worse– Stalder says his firm probably would have been the last guys to invest in Twitter’s A or B venture rounds. Towards the end of the video we discuss whether valuations are still climbing or finally coming down to earth as some investors flee towards later stages, and the one thing an entrepreneur can do to turn Stalder off.
