Fred Wilson
Fred Wilson
Fred Wilsonis an American businessman, venture capitalist and blogger. Wilson is the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, a New York City-based venture capital firm with investments in Web 2.0 companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Zynga, Kickstarter, and 10gen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth20 August 1961
CountryUnited States of America
differences ceo hiring
There is a difference between hiring a CEO and turning over control of the business.
littles
To see things differently requires you to be wired a little differently.
mean ideas laughing
When I see people laughing at ideas and companies we have backed, I smile. It means we are going to make a lot of money on that investment.
strong years long
Venture capitalists are professional money managers. We are provided capital to invest as long as we can return it to our investors with a strong return in a reasonable amount of time. A strong return is three times cash on cash. A reasonable amount of time is ten years max.
years careers long
My venture investing career has three phases, all roughly 6-8 years long. The first, at Euclid, was software to Internet. The second, at Flatiron, was Internet to bubble. And the third, at USV, has been web 2 to mobile. I have always used a new firm to denote a new investment phase for me. Throw away the old. Start with the new.
educational want-something quality
Customers are a great way to finance a business for many reasons. First, customer financing is typically non dilutive. They want something from you other than equity in your business. Customers also help you fit your product to the market. And customers will help debug and improve the quality of the product.
caring entrepreneur supportive
Being an entrepreneur is hard. Having supportive and caring investors helps.
invested knows mining
We haven't invested in the Mining Company, but I want to be friends with Scott because he knows a lot of people.