Startup Blog

My Latest Investment - SMB MarTech

Posted Mike Volpe on 10/26/16 12:03 PM

I just invested in a company that:

Announcing Operator.VC (it's not what you think)

Posted Mike Volpe on 7/26/16 12:00 PM

TL;DR: Operator.VC is an angel fund where Yoav Shapira and I will do our angel investing and others can follow along on our investments by joining our Angel List syndicate.  It is not a VC fund and we have no plans to raise outside capital.

Why I Invested in Drafted

Posted Mike Volpe on 7/18/16 9:37 AM

Announcing Lead Investment in Tettra: Next Gen Corporate Wiki and Collaboration

Posted Mike Volpe on 5/25/16 3:35 PM

I am very happy to announce that I have led the first fundraising for Tettra with an investment of $350K* in their pre-seed round (the total round was about $900K).  I love the team, the market, and the vision and I am excited to help them in their journey to build a great company.  Here is the detail behind my investment thesis.

Adding Value to the Venture Capitalist Pass Email

Posted Mike Volpe on 5/18/16 6:28 PM

One hard part about investing is that you have to pass on good companies and good people - you say "no" a lot.  One hard part about being a founder is that people say no when you try to recruit them, customers say no when you try to sell to them, and investors say no when you pitch them - you hear "no" a lot.  And especially when pitching investors, it is hard to know the real reason why they passed because they still want to be your friend in case the company starts to do amazingly well in the future and then they want to invest, or you start a new company they want to invest in.  

The Pixie Dust in Your Revenue Plan

Posted Mike Volpe on 1/5/16 12:49 PM

While reviewing revenue plans with two different companies I advise, I had some flashbacks to a bad experience years ago where our team learned something important: never put pixie dust in your board plan.

What's Next for Mike Volpe?

Posted Mike Volpe on 11/23/15 9:00 AM

tl;dr: I'm not sure what I am up to, but I am all in on Boston tech and am launching open office hours with a diversity component.

After a pretty crazy summer I have been doing a lot of reflecting on what I want to do with the next decade of my professional life. 

So, what's next?

What's on the mind of Marketing VPs today?

Posted Mike Volpe on 11/13/08 5:38 PM

This morning I attended a breakfast meeting for the marketing VPs at the portfolio companies of General Catalyst (they led the HubSpot A round investment).  The major topic of discussion was what was on our minds.  The GC folks were trying to get a feeling for what speakers and panels would be good to include in a marketing event aimed at helping their portfolio companies.

The general consensus around the table was the following top topics:

  • Getting more with less - What are best practices on using viral marketing and internet marketing to generate more inbound leads at a low cost?
  • Getting more out of your database - How can you use lead nurturing and other practices to convert more leads into opportunities?
  • Finding good vendors - How can you easily get honest reviews and pricing information on services companies for web design, PR, advertising agencies, etc.?
  • Product management for web 2.0 and Saas - How do you find good people and what are the best practices for product management for software as a service and web 2.0 products?

What's on your mind?  Leave a comment below.

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