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Allen Morgan

Sherpa to startups & active angel investor. Managing Director, Idealab's New Ventures Group.

Recent Activity

Allensblog Migrating to Medium.com

This blog has been moved to Medium.com with new and improved features. You may find the new blog here. Continue reading

Posted Jun 27, 2022 at allensblog

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Why Do We Give Speeches?

Now that we're neck-deep in the US Presidential campaign, one can't help see the two nominees giving political speeches every time one glances at a TV -- at home, walking through an airport, in a restaurant or bar, etc. The... Continue reading

Posted Aug 5, 2016 at allensblog

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Politics, Language and Collectives

As many are, I'm reflecting on the recent political conventions. Probably because each of the main parties is so divided (compared to broad historical norms -- with exceptions), it has highlighted for me the dangers of speaking about collectives (e.g.,... Continue reading

Posted Jul 30, 2016 at allensblog

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The "Vig" Working Its Way into VC Financings

This post in Techcrunch raises interesting issues around what seems to be a trend in VC financings for "lead" investors to get a better deal than "follower" investors in the same round. The article asserts that this is typically effected... Continue reading

Posted Nov 15, 2015 at allensblog

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Entrepreneurs, Don't Forget the Deep, Hidden Competition

In a separate post here, I wrote about an overall framework that entrepreneurs could use to think about competition -- and how to handle the issue in your VC pitch. I think the framework is still good for the intended... Continue reading

Posted Nov 3, 2015 at allensblog

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The Gig Economy

I love the Economist. But, this article, given my everyday experience, doesn’t feel right – kinda like Robert Solow’s quote back in the ‘80’s, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox). My own view... Continue reading

Posted Oct 27, 2015 at allensblog

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The "Forgotten Founder" -- How to Avoid This & Related Problems

Startup teams form in many different ways. Often, the “core” founder does some homework and recruits the founding team. Sometimes, teams are, more or less, recruited by a VC who has a startup idea but needs entrepreneurs to make it... Continue reading

Posted Sep 27, 2015 at allensblog

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More on Tough Questions

In a recent post, I advised entrepreneurs seeking VC funding to think carefully about choosing their co-founders. I claimed this decision is often gotten wrong and that, not infrequently, one or more co-founders leave the company with an amount of... Continue reading

Posted Sep 18, 2015 at allensblog

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Some Tough Questions Entrepreneurs Should Ask Themselves

If you want to raise money from VC’s, here’s a really tough, really important question you ought to ask yourself very early in the process: “How many co-founders should I have?” Having the wrong “answer” to this question can make... Continue reading

Posted Sep 18, 2015 at allensblog

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Success = Co-founder vs. Failure = "Early Employee"

Have you ever noticed, that, after the fact, successful companies have many "co-founders", while failed startups have only "early employees". I first noticed this phenomenon when I was a VC, back in the early/mid-2000's. PayPal had just completed the first... Continue reading

Posted Sep 18, 2015 at allensblog

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Managing Your Board of Directors -- Great Advice, From Someone Who's Good at It

Here is some advice for CEO's from a good friend of mine, John Kernan. John has been a successful serial entrepreneur for 40 or more years. John has, over the years, run companies that have been wildly successful, as well... Continue reading

Posted Sep 6, 2015 at allensblog

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Entrepreneurs: Are You Lost? How To Tell Where You Are in the VC Fundraising Process

As in many other situations involving asymmetric power relationships, VC’s (who usually have the power) like to preserve optionality with startups in which they’re interested (as I wrote here). That is, VCs generally will try to keep interesting deals “on... Continue reading

Posted Sep 2, 2015 at allensblog

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"On Demand" Eating the World of Music, Too.

It's now a truism, or a cliche, to mention how the "On-Demand" economy is eating the world of personal services (Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, Task Rabbit, Postmates, Instacart and dozens of others). Among a bunch of other reasons, millennials don't want... Continue reading

Posted Aug 31, 2015 at allensblog

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1998 -- 1999 are Calling and They Want their Wild Abandon Back!

I love Tesla, and am a huge fan of Elon Musk (a former client from my lawyer days). But, reading this in a place like the FT (as opposed to (the long defunct) "Industry Standard", as well as "Upside", "Red... Continue reading

Posted Aug 31, 2015 at allensblog

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Apple and Mobile Web Ad Blockers -- Not What It Seems?

Interesting story in WSJ about how Apple's new mobile web ad blockers are upsetting mobile web publishers and advertisers. The arms race continues, with publishers/advertisers -> ad blockers -> consulting firms that help publishers/advertisers combat ad blockers! Curious twist for... Continue reading

Posted Aug 31, 2015 at allensblog

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Advice on Hiring

Don’t hire people about whom you have doubts. One will make plenty of hiring mistakes during one's business career by hiring people about whom one had no doubts, but who, nevertheless, don’t work out. But, the failure rate on people... Continue reading

Posted Aug 22, 2015 at allensblog

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Startups and VCs -- The Secret Arena of Competition

Every startup seeking financing from VCs faces two kinds of competition: known and unknown. Known: Every startup pitch should have a "Competition" slide, in which it lists and (briefly) describes the bases of competition and the companies with whom it... Continue reading

Posted Aug 20, 2015 at allensblog

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Now, It's D2C eCommerce That's Eating the World

As pointed out in this article in yesterday's TechCrunch, yet another company, Away, is pursuing the D2C business model -- another instance of the evolution of eCommerce from eCommerce 1.0 to eCommerce 2.0. The article cites WarbyParker & Casper. Hem.com... Continue reading

Posted Aug 18, 2015 at allensblog

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Entrepreneur's Prerogative -- Making Mistakes

Out there in business advice land, there's lots of writing about how good company cultures celebrate, encourage, or, at least accommodate, mistakes. Much of it is pablum, but there are some OK treatments of the topic (here's one I stumbled... Continue reading

Posted Aug 17, 2015 at allensblog

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Entrepreneurs: Make Sure You Prepare Your Customers for Reference Calls

Practice varies, but quite often the last two due diligence items a VC will want to do before offering a term sheet are (1) personal references and (2) customer references. These should be done last because it's easy to "burn... Continue reading

Posted Aug 15, 2015 at allensblog

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Kissing Your Sister on the Cheek -- VCs and Risk Asymmetry

There's an interesting article today by Sarah Lacy in Pando Daily. In it, she analyzes why there seem to have been a lot of high-profile failures among "celebrity" startups that had raised tons of money, and were being touted as... Continue reading

Posted Aug 12, 2015 at allensblog

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Media Consumption in the UK -- Mobile Is Eating the World

Interesting article in today's FT with lots of interesting statistics about consumer media consumption and interaction in the UK (but which broadly resembles the US experience). No surprise, perhaps, but more internet access is done using smartphones than laptops. TV... Continue reading

Posted Aug 6, 2015 at allensblog

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Virtual Reality & the Hype Cycle

In today's WSJ, there's a column by Christopher Mims on Virtual Reality: "Virtual Reality Isn't Just About Games". As the title implies, he makes the case that 3-D Immersive VR, while starting in games, will prove to be revolutionary in... Continue reading

Posted Aug 3, 2015 at allensblog

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"Leakage" in the OnDemand Economy

The "On Demand" economy (elsewhere, I've called it the crowd-scaled economy and it sure isn't accurate to call it the "sharing" economy) is getting lots of attention, and financing, these days. Just yesterday, Uber announced a round valuing the company... Continue reading

Posted Aug 1, 2015 at allensblog

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Unicorns: High Valuation Deals and Structure

There are now well over a hundred private tech companies that have announced financings with post-money valuations of over $1B. Having worked on several of these high-valuation deals over the years, it surprises me that no mention (in anything I... Continue reading

Posted Jul 31, 2015 at allensblog

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