Table of Contents

1. April 2007
   1. Term Sheet Hacks: Get a Great Deal
   2. Create a Board the Reflects the Ownership of the Company
   3. Make a New Board Seat for a New CEO
   4. Reactions to Venture Hacks
   5. The option pool shuffle: Beat the game and raise your valuation
   6. Focus on your share price, not your valuation
   7. Get vested for time served
   8. Accelerate your vesting upon termination
   9. Accelerate your vesting upon a sale
   10. We have the best readers in the world
   11. Supersize your versting with micro-hacks
   12. Term sheet hacks: the cheat sheet
2. May 2007
   1. Should you raise debt or equity?
   2. Venture Hacks: The Mug
   3. Comment of the week, cherry edition
   4. Keep your options open if you raise debt
   5. Hack: the benefits of debt Vs equity in a seed round
   6. Hack: Make your debt attactive to investors
   7. Comments, the threaded edition
   8. Hack: supersize your debt with these micro-hacks
3. June 2007
   1. Great fundraising advice from Dharmesh Shah
   2. Launch: Venture Hacks Office Hours
   3. Office Hours, technical error edition
   4. Ask VH: What are super pro rata rights?
   5. Hack: Build your own cap table
   6. We're hiring: one man developer army
4. July 2007
   1. A few hacks from our personal blogs
   2. Thoughts on the equity equation
5. August 2007
   1. Hack: Understand why investors want protective provisions
   2. Why investors don't always do the right thing
   3. Thoughts on Adam Smith's letter to graduation Y Combinator companies
6. September 2007
   1. Hack: Create a market for your shares
   2. Pop Quiz: How is raising money like buying a car?
7. October 2007
   1. Ask Venture Hacks: What is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?
   2. Ask VH: Is the VC industry doomed?
   3. Ask VH: Sell my company or raise capital?
   4. Ask VH: Raise money from VCs or angels?
   5. Ask Venture Hacks
   6. Ask VH: What's dumb money?
8. November 2007
   1. What should I send investors part 1: the elevator pitch
   2. What should I send investor part 2, deck
   3. What should I send investors part 3: business plans and traction
   4. Grockit's founder on raising money
   5. Topix founder on Spice Girls Vs VC
   6. How much diligence shoudl we do before signing a term sheet
9. December 2007
   1. Should I shop around?
   2. Should I pay my investor's legal fees?
   3. Is it safe to send my deck to investors?
   4. Venture Hacks on Twitter
   5. Should I give my lawyers equity?
10. January 2008
    1. The top 3 hacks of the year
    2. Terminating Cisco's founders
    3. How well do investors recruit?
    4. Tom Perkins of KPCB interviewed
    5. How do I find a lead investor, part 1
    6. How do I find a lead investor, part 2
    7. How do I find a lead investor, part 3
    8. Why do investors want control?
11. February 2008
    1. Everything you ever wanted to know about advisors, part 1
    2. T-shirts for VCs
    3. The latest quotes from our Twitter feed
    4. Everything you ever wanted to know about advisors, part 2
    5. The latest comments on Venture Hacks, founder edition
12. March 2008
    1. Half assed startup: how do I start my company and keep my day job?
    2. Getting recommended
    3. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins on building business
    4. Marc Andreesen on Charlie Munger on cognitive bias
    5. Reactions to recommended
13. April 2008
    1. Missionaries, not mercenaries
    2. Venture Hacks tweets - Kleiner edition
    3. How much money should we raise?
    4. Former VC helps entrepreneurs raise money
    5. New investors on Venture Hacks
    6. How do we set the valuation for a seed round?
    7. VH Twitters: Ball punching edition
14. May 2008
    1. Lijit's CEO on raising money from angels
    2. High concept pitches for startups
    3. From incoherent to high concept pitch
    4. O'Reilly Startup Camp
    5. Free ideas. Just add execution.
    6. Hollywood Pitch: Feedburner for iPhones
15. June 2008
    1. Control is a one way street
    2. Mike Cassidy: Speed as THE primary business strategy
    3. VH Twitters: “It’s never been done before” Edition
    4. Lawyers are referees, not coaches
    5. A Hollywood for Startups
    6. Don’t follow our advice
    7. Daddy, what’s a soft circle?
    8. Do you know any idea investors?
    9. Ideas need not apply
    10. The Rocket Ship investment model
    11. The Monk and the Riddle
16. July 2008
    1. Books for Entrepreneurs: Bargaining for Advantage
    2. I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 1.
    3. I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 2.
17. September 2008
    1. VH Twitters: Extreme Edition
    2. Our top 10 term sheet hacks
    3. How common is accelerated vesting on change in control?
    4. (Not so) Scary terms in offer letters.
    5. What do investors look for in a startup?
    6. What does an employee offer letter look like?
    7. Who makes the best introductions to investors?
18. October 2008
    1. Elevator Pitches avec Bullets
    2. The Laws of Productivity
    3. Startup Lessons Learned
    4. Get Venture Hacks via email
    5. What should I do before signing a term sheet?
    6. VH Twitters: Self Loving Edition
    7. Sequoia’s advice is good advice anytime
    8. Financings are blowing up
    9. “They blew an opportunity to remain optimistic”
    10. Vinod Khosla: “Big opportunities are changing the structure of society.”
    11. “If you want to improve your chances”
    12. How do I lay people off?
    13. How Steve Jobs pitches a startup
    14. Lean startups find their moment
    15. How should I format my deck?
    16. A quick and dirty guide to starting up
    17. How to deal with Machiavellian investors
    18. VH Twitters: Persistence Edition
    19. Why startup pitches fail
19. November 2008
    1. Coming Soon: Pitching Hacks, The Book
    2. Books for Entrepreneurs: Agile Software Development
    3. How to develop your customers like you develop your product
    4. “Agile methods and startup companies… go perfectly together.”
    5. Our Sponsor: Charles River Ventures
    6. VH Twitters: “Write a blog, not a business plan.”
    7. Updated: Our top 10 term sheet hacks
    8. Updated: A quick and dirty guide to starting up
    9. Pivotal Tracker: The iPod of project management software
    10. Five whys, Part 1: The startup immune system
    11. “It ain’t about right, it’s about money.”
    12. Five whys, Part 2: How to get started
    13. Five whys, Part 3: Legacy startups
    14. The OODA Loop: Playing chess with half the pieces
    15. Robert Heinlein: “Specialization is for insects”
20. December 2008
    1. Books for Entrepreneurs: Extreme Programming Explained
    2. Sponsor: Charles River Ventures
    3. Raising money is a black swan
    4. How to moderate (and write) comments
    5. Our new archives
    6. Steve Jobs: “Apple is only its ideas”
    7. Extraordinary Organizations: \$170M company with no titles except “plant” manager
21. January 2009
    1. My visit to American Apparel
    2. We don’t pay you to work here
    3. The spontaneous optimism that drives startups
    4. The Human Equation: How to organize people for profit
    5. Lowering the water level: Do bad economies spur innovation?
    6. Pitching Hacks is almost here / Calling all testers
    7. (A bit of) Decision-making for startups
    8. Pitching Hacks: Beta test update
    9. Paul Buchheit: “Consider spending less time talking, and more time prototyping”
22. February 2009
    1. How IMVU learned its way to \$10M a year
    2. Launch: Pitching Hacks, The Book
23. March 2009
    1. Take a course from the king of customer development
    2. Mike Maples: “My opinion is interesting, but irrelevant.”
    3. The Venture Hacks Podcast
    4. How to be an angel investor, Part 2
    5. Don’t launch? But the New York Times is on the phone!
    6. The king of customer development starts a blog (and tweets too)
    7. What is the minimum viable product?
    8. Customer Development, Classes 3 and 4
    9. Opening board meetings to the entire company
    10. Sell it before you build it
24. April 2009
    1. It’s very easy to underprice your product
    2. How we encourage word of mouth for Pitching Hacks
    3. We teach entrepreneurship like every vertical market has the same set of rules
    4. The Startup MBA
    5. Pitching Hacks at Stanford
    6. Customer Development, Class 5: IMVU
    7. How to close a term sheet quickly
25. May 2009
    1. Hey, have you heard of Twitter?
26. September 2009
    1. Steve Jobs does customer development
    2. Steve Jobs does customer development: No new features
    3. How do I refine my product’s positioning?
    4. Twitter updates
    5. Term sheet tune-up
    6. New York Meetup
    7. Customer Development Patterns
27. October 2009
    1. New York Meetup was awesome
    2. Get drunk with VCs and help charity
    3. Take our Twitter Survey
    4. Put your tweets on your blog
    5. “Your next feature won’t save you”
    6. “Real wealth creation will take founding, seniority, or staggeringly large exits.”
    7. 10 examples of minimum viable products
    8. The problem with VC motivation
    9. Notes from Startup School 2009
    10. Our first online workshop: How to pitch investors
28. November 2009
    1. Customer development by the book
    2. Lean startups aren’t Cheap Startups
    3. Best of the startup blogs
    4. Startup Boy is back
    5. The long tail of VC blogs
    6. The long tail of VC twitterers
    7. How to pick a co-founder
    8. Extrapolating computing
    9. The sultans of startup marketing
    10. The ignorant VC
    11. Weekend reading
    12. 3 customer development case studies
    13. Get the best of the startup blogs
    14. Venture Hacks Bookstore
    15. How to share secrets in a negotiation
    16. Thanking our supporters
    17. Interview: How to pick a co-founder
    18. Morale, distribution, profit, and games
29. December 2009
    1. Just Say No: VC terms that can really hurt
    2. Home improvement
    3. Sometimes the feature is the product
    4. Startup News, the first 2 weeks
    5. 10 skills I look for before writing a check
    6. Just Say No: VC terms that can really hurt (Part 2)
    7. Pitching Hacks, in paperback
    8. How to bring a product to market / A very rare interview with Sean Ellis
    9. How to measure product/market fit with survey.io
    10. Take guidance from VCs, not orders
    11. “Angel investors are becoming the dominant force in consumer internet venture capital”
    12. Marketing science Q\&{
    13. “NDAs up the wazoo”
    14. Get our interviews on the Venture Hacks Podcast
    15. When the cost of customer acquisition exceeds your ability to monetize them
    16. The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs
    17. Our top 10 posts of 2009 — dominated by customer development
    18. Chris Dixon: How much seed money should I raise?
    19. The Billy Mays method of picking startups
30. January 2010
    1. The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs, Part 2
    2. How to re-negotiate with your customers — and not lose a single one
    3. Emotions at work
    4. 10 skills I look for before writing a check, Part 2: Perspiration and Appetite for Risk
    5. 5 New Year’s resolutions for closing deals in 2010
    6. No ocean boiling please
    7. How to bring a product to market, Part 2 — after product/market fit
    8. Top 10 reasons why entrepreneurs hate lawyers
    9. Bram Cohen: “Lawyers can’t tell you you can’t do something”
    10. I’m speaking at The Future of Funding
    11. A list of social startup lawyers
    12. Get Venture Hacks on Facebook
    13. How to raise money without lying to investors
    14. Launch: Sponsor Posts — ads that rule
    15. Comments of the week: Legal fees, financial projections, and fit
    16. 10 skills I look for before writing a check, Part 3: Detail Orientation, Competitiveness, Decisiveness
    17. When to fire your co-founders
    18. Most inspiring speech ever
31. February 2010
    1. When you’re raising money, the competition isn’t the competition
    2. Launch: AngelList, a curated list of angel investors
    3. Launch: StartupList — a new way to reach angels
    4. StartupList: Day 1 — Thank You
    5. In a board room, somewhere in Silicon Valley…
    6. A brief history of your investors (and their investors)
    7. “He has no clue whether it will be another Google, yet he has to make promises that only hucksters can make.”
    8. My experiments in lean pricing
    9. How to optimize web apps with KISSmetrics
    10. How to not over-optimize your Series A term sheet
    11. StartupList: The first startup gets funded
32. March 2010
    1. [Startup Digest]: “The best startup events in 27 cities”
    2. More diligence and less capital coming for startups (and their investors)
    3. It takes more than one intro to get a meeting
    4. Give tweet a chance
    5. I’m speaking at SXSW + Holding a SXSW MEETUP
    6. The only reason investors say ‘no’
    7. Solvate is simple outsourcing for startups
    8. How to schedule meetings with investors
    9. Our most popular links
    10. What happens at SXSW gets published right here
    11. Which angels have taken meetings from AngelList?
    12. What’s the vision?
    13. Where’s the demo?
33. April 2010
    1. Postling gets funded with AngelList
    2. “Being open early worked well for us”
    3. Top heavy startups
    4. Can I send my pitch to just some of the angels on AngelList?
    5. Interview: How to close an angel round
    6. “AngelList is the real deal”
    7. Facebook acquires AngelList startup
    8. Who has time for meetings?
    9. Presentation Hacks
34. May 2010
    1. How much traction do I need?
    2. Startup Lessons Learned: I wish this conference was around five years ago
    3. Our Inc. interview about angels
    4. One way to start a startup
    5. Two great talks from SLLConf
    6. Where to find the best startup advice
    7. The Wilson bump
    8. Hello vh.co
    9. VCs in seed clothing: Chris Dixon, Mark Suster, and Naval Ravikant interviewed
    10. NYC startup raises money with AngelList
    11. If this is your first time raising money…
    12. Naval on GigaOm TV
    13. Steve Ballmer from the Microsoft Corporation with an iPad review
    14. This week in Twitter
    15. Venture Hacks TV
    16. Why startups should train their people
    17. Angel Boot Camp coming to Cambridge
    18. John Doerr: The salesman for nerds
    19. Resiliency
    20. This Week in Venture Capital
    21. This fortnight in Twitter
35. June 2010
    1. Ads for startups
    2. The Startup Game
    3. Local startup BlockChalk raises national money with AngelList
    4. The WSJ reports on AngelList
    5. A tale of 3 financings
36. July 2010
    1. Where we office
    2. This fortnight in Twitter
    3. A conflict of interests
    4. If you’ve run out of ideas, buy gold
    5. Fred Wilson: “Angels love to share deals with each other”
    6. Thumbtack raises money with AngelList
    7. LearnBoost raises money with AngelList
    8. How to raise money with no lead
37. August 2010
    1. Tracking testimonials — the lazy way
    2. 7 angel investing tips in 7 minutes
    3. Quora Marketing
    4. Xconomy covers AngelList
    5. How we’re recruiting a product designer for AngelList
    6. AngelList Scouts
38. September 2010
    1. How Udemy got oversubscribed
    2. Blogging on Quora
39. October 2010
    1. If only we could raise money
    2. Welcoming the Kauffman Foundation
    3. Vinod Khosla: “I was much more of a glorified recruiter.”
    4. The rise of the angels
    5. What you can learn from The Social Network
    6. The Venture Hacks Newsletter is back
    7. Which startups have been funded via AngelList?
    8. Free the Firehose
    9. Primo essay on team building
    10. The Venture Hacks Bible
    11. “Intros from AngelList were responsible for 54.5\% of the \$1M we raised”
    12. AngelList in real time
    13. How much money should I raise?
40. November 2010
    1. Always assume competition
    2. Before you raise money
41. December 2010
    1. Control which investors see your startup
42. January 2011
    1. The Secret History of Venture Hacks
    2. Why would a seasoned entrepreneur use AngelList?
    3. Benefits, not features
    4. Sweat the details and corner cases
    5. Raise a Series A on AngelList
    6. How does AngelList work?
    7. Tour: Markets on AngelList
    8. AngelList Markets Tour, Part 2: The Details
43. February 2011
    1. VCs are generalists, and other lies
    2. VCs (slightly) more active than angels on AngelList
    3. Venture Hacks sucks now, all you talk about is AngelList
    4. 4 types of scale
    5. Are founders really 1000x more valuable than employees?
    6. Fred Wilson’s 5 rules for market fit
    7. Taulia raises Series A from top performing VC fund of all time — via AngelList
44. March 2011
    1. AngelList Goes Global
    2. Mark Suster interviews AngelList survivor TODAY (Wednesday 5pm Pacific)
    3. Thoughts on Investing
    4. The first 1000x in valuation is the easiest
    5. Launch: The AngelList Blog
    6. So who is actually investing on AngelList?
45. May 2011
    1. Are you selling your startup’s shares door-to-door?
    2. AngelList startup wins TechCrunch Disrupt
46. June 2011
    1. “A” players write the playbook
    2. Reading your legal docs
    3. Getting Leverage in Hostage Negotiations
    4. Anatomy of an (un)fundable startup
47. July 2011
    1. But I don’t want to follow you on Twitter
    2. Before product-market fit, find passion-market fit
    3. 1.5 Years Of AngelList: 8000 Intros, 400 Investments And That’s Just The Data We Can Tell You About
48. August 2011
    1. The problem with the Internet startup craze
49. December 2011
    1. You can be so bad at so many things