Category: Tech news

Unraveling the “Secrets of Sand Hill Road” and the VC thought process, with Andreessen Horowitz’s Scott Kupor

Our Silicon Valley editor Connie Loizos hosted an Extra Crunch live conference call with Andreessen Horowitz GP Scott Kupor, who manages all ops for the firm and was formerly head of the National Venture Capital Association. He just published a new book entitled “Secrets of Sand Hill Road” which is a guide to the venture capital industry and how to attract the attention of VCs to your startup.

This was our most popular conference call so far, and it was great to see so many people coming out to chat with Scott. In case you missed it, we have published the full transcript for Extra Crunch members.

Connie: Talking about demystifying venture capital, you’ve been with Andreessen Horowitz for roughly 10 years, pretty much from the outset of the firm. Can you tell us, beyond a warm introduction, what does it take to get a meeting at Andreessen Horowitz? What do you start looking for on paper?

Scott: What we’re really looking for is a couple of things. First, we always think about market initially, because we know that we’re going to be wrong a lot of times and the way we have to invest is we have to believe at the time we make the investment that the market size is big enough to be able to support a standalone, hopefully, public company at some point in time.

So, that’s always the threshold question we’re trying to ask — is the opportunity that they’re going after is as big as it possibly can be? And then, most of the analysis, particularly the early stage, tends to be based on team, because, we don’t really have the benefit of the product yet.

We definitely don’t even know, quite frankly, how the markets going to evolve. And so, the real question is what is it about this team or set of individuals that makes them uniquely qualified to go after this opportunity? What do they know?

We use this term internally, called an “earned secret”, which is what have you learned that other people might not know that’s going to really enable you to go build something that we know is going to be tough and competitive, and a long slog? And, a lot of the evaluation really starts there.

This year’s Computex was a wild ride with dueling chip releases, new laptops and 467 startups

Our Taipei-based correspondent Catherine Shu attended the local Computex conference, which has long been a major hub in the semiconductor, next-generation silicon, AI and 5G circuits. She wrote up her observations of what’s on the cutting edge of these fields, and what the opportunities for startups are in these hot spaces.

What’s on your to-do list in the next 48 hours? Move “launch my awesome early-stage startup to the world” to the top of the list and apply to compete in the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt San Francisco 2019 on October 2-4 in front of 10,000 live attendees and tens of thousands online.

Your opportunity to compete head-to-head against a handpicked cadre of the best early-stage startups expires in just 48 hours. It won’t cost you a dime to apply or to compete. Compare that to the price of a missed opportunity.

Judging by applications we’ve received so far, the Startup Battlefield at DSF ’19 promises to be an epic showdown. One winner will claim the storied Disrupt Cup and the $100,000 equity-free cash prize — but all participants benefit from a huge amount of potentially life-changing media and investor attention.

Case in point: All Startup Battlefield teams receive private pitch coaching with the TechCrunch team, access to CrunchMatch — TechCrunch’s investor startup matching program, access to private VIP receptions, the VIP treatment at Disrupt and exhibit space in Startup Alley for all three days.

And participating in the Battlefield provides benefits long after the competition ends, too. Consider the Startup Battlefield alumni community. Since 2007, 857 companies — including Vurb, Dropbox, Mint, Yammer and more — have competed in a Battlefield pitch-off and gone on to raise more than $8.9 billion in funding and generated 110 exits. You could be part of the next alumni wave.

Here’s how it all works. TechCrunch editors with a keen eye for successful startups will vet every application. They’ll narrow the field to 15-25 exceptional companies. Competing founders receive extensive pitch coaching from our editors — at no cost. You’ll be thoroughly prepared to step onto the Main Stage come game day.

Each team has six-minutes to pitch and present a live demo to a panel of judges — we’re talking experienced VCs and techies all. And that’s followed by a round of Q&A. If you make it through to the next round, you’ll do it all again in front of a new set of judges.

All this fast-paced, nerve-wracking action takes place in front of a live audience of thousands, and we live-stream the entire event on TechCrunch.com, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Plus, it’s available later on-demand.

One standout startup will emerge to claim the title, the Disrupt Cup and the $100,000. Will it be you? There’s only one way to know for sure. Apply to the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt San Francisco 2019. Your opportunity disappears in just 48 hours!

How’d you like double your chances of standing in a Disrupt spotlight? Simply apply for our TC Top Picks program, too. As a TC Top Pick, you’ll receive a free Startup Alley Exhibitor Package, VIP treatment and plenty of media and investor exposure.

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