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Ed Sim
east coast venture capitalist investing in software, Internet, and digital media companies
Interests: hockey, family, basketball, played varsity lacrosse in college and now coach youth teams
Recent Activity
Standard investor update for startups
I remember when we hired a new CEO for one of our portfolio companies and my tip to him was to overcommunicate. We had a few large VCs on the board and a number of high-profile angels that could also... Continue reading
Posted Oct 20, 2010 at BeyondVC
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Don't build an empire overnight - lessons from FreshDirect and Webvan
The other day I received a direct mail piece from FreshDirect, the online delivery service based out of New York. What struck me is that the service has been around for years in NYC, and it is now getting out... Continue reading
Posted Oct 7, 2010 at BeyondVC
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Simple and accountable-that is the way to get things done
Commented Oct 1, 2010 on Scaling your management style at BeyondVC
Scaling your management style
After meeting with a number of entrepreneurs I recently seed funded, it was clear to me that one of the major challenges founders face is how to continue to scale their management style. My preferred seed investment is in an engineering driven/product focused team who can code and get product o...
Scaling your management style
After meeting with a number of entrepreneurs I recently seed funded, it was clear to me that one of the major challenges founders face is how to continue to scale their management style. My preferred seed investment is in an... Continue reading
Posted Sep 30, 2010 at BeyondVC
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The consumer Internet business is not easy
It's not easy to build a service that everyone loves and even harder to build one that gets 3000 new users a day on an installed base of 2 million users. Once there you may think of yourself in the... Continue reading
Posted Sep 28, 2010 at BeyondVC
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Steve-you guys did a great job of selling what wasn't ready. i wish we didn't hire you guys so early but lesson learned for us all! anyway glad to hear that you and the team are doing so well
Commented Jul 9, 2010 on EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum - more behind the story at BeyondVC
EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum - more behind the story
Congratulations to Greenplum and Scott Yara, Bill Cook, and Luke Lonergan in particular! It has been quite a roller coaster ride over the last 10 years and there were a number of times we stared at the abyss only to come back stronger. This is a story of great people and incredible perseverance...
Luke-what a pleasure working with you. Lots of great stories including the logo at Mach 5 and lunch at Chevys. Enjoy!
Commented Jul 7, 2010 on EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum - more behind the story at BeyondVC
EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum - more behind the story
Congratulations to Greenplum and Scott Yara, Bill Cook, and Luke Lonergan in particular! It has been quite a roller coaster ride over the last 10 years and there were a number of times we stared at the abyss only to come back stronger. This is a story of great people and incredible perseverance...
EMC buys portfolio company Greenplum - more behind the story
Congratulations to Greenplum and Scott Yara, Bill Cook, and Luke Lonergan in particular! It has been quite a roller coaster ride over the last 10 years and there were a number of times we stared at the abyss only to... Continue reading
Posted Jul 7, 2010 at BeyondVC
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4 Types of CEO Behavior when Dealing with Boards
As I have stressed over the years, it is imperative for board members and their management teams to have open dialogue. If you are a CEO, I encourage you to share more rather than less information. One of the best... Continue reading
Posted Apr 30, 2010 at BeyondVC
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Ed Sim added a favorite at BeyondVC
Apr 1, 2010
The Ongoing Data Revolution
In early 2006, I wrote a post titled "The next generation web, scaling and data mining will matter." In it, I highlighted some thoughts on the future: I truly believe the next battleground will be based on scaling the back... Continue reading
Posted Apr 1, 2010 at BeyondVC
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agreed on taking too long to validate customer needs
Commented Mar 30, 2010 on Is it a feature or product? at BeyondVC
Is it a feature or product?
During the last month I have spent more time looking at Angel investments as I believe it is a great time to start a business. However, one key question I keep asking myself after meeting with entrepreneur after entrepreneur is whether or not what they have is just a feature of a larger product...
Is it a feature or product?
During the last month I have spent more time looking at Angel investments as I believe it is a great time to start a business. However, one key question I keep asking myself after meeting with entrepreneur after entrepreneur is... Continue reading
Posted Mar 30, 2010 at BeyondVC
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4
Ed Sim is now following The Typepad Team
Mar 15, 2010
Gartner does not require you to buy subscriptions and consulting. however, it certainly is helpful in letting the analysts get to know you and giving you more time with them
Commented Feb 4, 2010 on The Gartner Magic Quadrant - a necessary evil in IT at BeyondVC
The Gartner Magic Quadrant - a necessary evil in IT
Lately, I feel as if I have been spending an inordinate amount of time with my companies talking about marketing. Related to this, one of my portfolio companies recently received a number of nice emails from the board related to its new positioning in Gartner's Magic Quadrant. We were all quit...
The Gartner Magic Quadrant - a necessary evil in IT
Posted Feb 4, 2010 at BeyondVC
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Scott-love how you are trying to take an art form and put some more metrics around it. it definitely looks spot on and of course like all things, the clarity score depends on how honest you are about yourself. that is why having an outside board member or investor to help you go through this could be quite illuminating
Commented Jan 25, 2010 on Market positioning for startups - focus, focus, focus at BeyondVC
Market positioning for startups - focus, focus, focus
I was on a call yesterday with an inspired and talented management team. As we walked through the deck, one point particularly struck me as I listened to their well-honed pitch. The company was trying to boil the ocean and do everything for its customers. While it was great that the team seem...
Market positioning for startups - focus, focus, focus
I was on a call yesterday with an inspired and talented management team. As we walked through the deck, one point particularly struck me as I listened to their well-honed pitch. The company was trying to boil the ocean and... Continue reading
Posted Jan 22, 2010 at BeyondVC
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When to ramp sales
While 2009 was a tough year, I must say that it was nice to see a number of our portfolio companies have blow out 4th quarters for bookings and growth. Despite that, I am still taking a cautiously optimistic approach... Continue reading
Posted Jan 14, 2010 at BeyondVC
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Google acquires portfolio company Gizmo5
Posted Nov 13, 2009 at BeyondVC
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The Googlization of IT
Today I took a sales team from a portfolio company to meet with a couple of senior IT executives at a major retail company. Towards the end of the meeting, it started to become quite clear to me the effect... Continue reading
Posted Oct 27, 2009 at BeyondVC
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cohesiveft looks great-would love to meet them
Commented May 12, 2009 on Hybrid clouds are coming at BeyondVC
Hybrid clouds are coming
Amazon has taken off with its cloud compute infrastructure but there still have been some limitations from an enterprise perspective. Mainly, some enterprises are concerned about keeping their data private, about reliability, and storage costs over time. Any enterprise looking at potentially l...
Luke-good points. I know one of the first customers and while Cassatt did a great job working with them I believe what they ran into is a problem of market size-not enough large guys willing to pay big $$$. You are so right-can't ramp sales before you have a repeatable product to sell
Commented Apr 29, 2009 on Pioneers get arrows in their backs at BeyondVC
Pioneers get arrows in their backs
Pioneers get arrows in their backs - I have experienced it firsthand from an active investor's viewpoint and written about it in the past. Being early in a market is great but being too early can be deadly. Just like the settlers in the westward migration, entrepreneurs who are too early will ...
Adam-well said. Yes, ad-based models can work tremendously in the long-term. The concern is that if you are raising capital and you pitch how big you will be 24 months from now and have no other revenue stream in the short term, it is a tough proposition in this marke. In addition, if I look at all of the companies that raised money during the last 3 years that pitched ad revenue as their home run revenue source, an incredibly small percentage of companies actually have enough users and revenue to warrant the ad model
Commented Apr 3, 2009 on Cover the basics before you raise capital at BeyondVC
Cover the basics before you raise capital
No matter how many times I told my friend that he needed to get a deck together for a potential capital raise and model out some thoughts on market sizing and financials, I ran into resistance. It was not because he didn't think it was important or that it mattered. It was because he was under...
John Doe-good points and I must say that I have never thrown anyone out the door and nor would I. This was put up for dramatic effect because I do know some VCs who have been rude with entrepreneurs and would end meetings quite quickly. All I can say is that if you have been reading my blog for the last 5 years you would know who I am and what I am about. I would not spend so much time offering "meat and potatoes" advice if that was the kind of person I am. Sometimes you have to be dramatic to get your point across
Commented Apr 2, 2009 on Positioning and pitch decks for startups at BeyondVC
Positioning and pitch decks for startups
A friend of mine is putting together his first deck for potential investors. In typical startup fashion, they launched a product, got a number of users, and then iterated several times to improve the service. With the product in the hands of tens of thousands of users, they started getting inb...
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