Operating Manual for VC Firm Bloomberg Beta(github.com) |
Operating Manual for VC Firm Bloomberg Beta(github.com) |
> We believe that there are exceptional individuals with great ideas who likely have the skills to build a company but lack the network or personal financial means to get started. So we will invest a small amount of capital -- $50K (for roughly 2% of the startup idea you pursue) -- to support very, very early-stage founders explore an idea, validate a key hypothesis, or build an early prototype.
https://github.com/Bloomberg-Beta/Manual/blob/master/1%20-%2...
> If we don’t know you ourselves, we prefer if someone we trust knows you.
The basic idea is to separate the content from how it's rendered (html, css, js). How content is rendered can be a repo-by-repo decision. Benefits of this is better portability of data and easier way to organize things on the internet: you wouldn't have to web-scrape with some type of dom parsing heuristic library since the content is readily accessible.
It's also feasible in implementation: plenty of people are publishing via Github pages and Jekyll; I just haven't seen the ability to fork posts yet. Bloomberg Beta definitely could've done this for their website.
Very useful if you are into that stuff.
2. 500k is a lot for pre-seed and fine for the common case of a 1-5M seed party round, which is generally 1-2 leads + various smaller checks. Interestingly, w/ softbank floundering and us economy prepping for a recession, I expect seed rounds to back down -- current is 2-5X over just 5-10yr ago.
(Disclaimer: founder that works with them and has to think about this stuff professionally)
Sorry but to me this is screwy. Why do I have to spend time navigating github to find basic info about the firm if I am just curious? Why is it beneficial or implied that anyone who is anyone knows the secret handshake of finding what they need by finding it in this manner? Why is it not possible to have transparency with a 'normal' website and then if there is a reason point people to github?
From wikipedia:
"Bloomberg Beta consists of six full-time employees: Roy Bahat, Karin Klein, James Cham, Shivon Zillis, Morgan Polotan and Shaina Conners. Bahat was previously the President of IGN Entertainment and was the chairman of Ouya Inc. until June 2015."
The github site says nothing about who these people are either. Sorry they are not 'well known enough' to present this way. This is not 'everyone knows who Bill Gates is'.
Example: https://github.com/KarinK
This is not transparency it is the opposite.
These are the kind of people wear their graduation rings upside down so you'll feel the chunk of metal in the handshake.
If either are opportunities of interest, many of us on the team can be reached a variety of ways (email, twitter, LinkedIn).
"That is my test of whether this person is a true entrepreneur. If they are, they will find a way, by hook or crook, to get to someone who knows me"
It will obviously be easier to draw Marc's attention from a high socioeconomic stratum, but as a VC it's not in his interest to make it completely impossible for anyone. At least that's the way I read it.
> If you don’t know how to find us, figure it out.