In my job on the front lines of venture capital, I get to see about 3-4 business plans and pitches per day. This is the lifeblood of our firm and our industry. I always tell entrepreneurs that without them, I don’t have a job – if they don’t do the hard work of starting the [...]
I am a big believer in building the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in Pittsburgh, and of building my people network.
I have to make a trip out to AlphaLab later this week, and I decided to do something fun in conjunction with that trip. I am going to hold some “Open Office Hours” at AlphaLab for anyone [...]
A couple of nights ago I was invited to CMU to judge some elevator pitches (along with Dave Mawhinney and Mel Pirchesky – Mel is considered by most to be the godfather of the elevator pitch, and you can read a guest post he made here at Pittsburgh Ventures about a year ago) from undergraduates [...]
As a VC in Pittsburgh I have gotten to be good at spotting buzzwords that make for bad investments. Here is a short sampling of my current list (believe me, the real list is much longer):
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Neural Networks
Cluster Analysis
Fuzzy Logic
Non-parametric Modeling
Tree Regression
Bayesian Networks
I have an aneurysm anytime I see these words independently, or yikes! – in [...]
I was a guest on my partner Glen’s political radio program this past weekend – and you can hear the feed here (I show up at about the 12:45 minute point). We discuss entrepreneurialism in general, and more specifically what it takes to be successful as you build your own business.
I am going to be [...]
Having likely raised much more equity from angel investors than anyone else in the Pittsburgh region, Mel Pirchesky, President of Eagle Ventures, is a long-time Pittsburgh entrepreneur. He’s raised over $60 million of equity for more than 30 deals from individuals located mostly in the Pittsburgh region. He completed a $9 million financing [...]