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As Senior Vice President of Hardware, Matt Hershenson brings a wealth of experience to Danger. He is responsible for Danger's hardware engineering, development and design efforts. Before co-founding Danger, Matt managed the hardware group at Mainbrace Corporation, a Windows CE systems integrator. Prior to Mainbrace Corporation, Matt served in various roles at Philips Electronics. During his tenure with the Philips Mobile Computing Group, he was responsible for the hardware of the Velo-1 handheld PC, one of the first Windows CE devices. While at Philips Semiconductors, Matt served as a systems architect, where he played an integral role in the design of numerous consumer handheld devices, including the Sharp Mobilon, Philips Nino, and the Compaq C-series. Before Philips, Matt was a hardware engineer with Catapult Entertainment, since acquired by Hearme. He was part of the team that turned the vision of multi-player gaming over the Internet into a reality. He handled all aspects of product development and design for the XBAND Video Game Modem. Matt also played a key role in the product development and design of the Apple Powerbook 150, then Apple's most affordable PowerBook computer. Matt also co-founded MOTO Development Group, a product design consultancy firm specializing in product development. MOTO aided in the design of many technical products, such as remote controls for Apple Interactive TV.
Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven, and Kana. He also led the firm's investments in Tradex and Cyras (acquired by Ariba and Ciena for $8 billion), and most recently, in pioneering companies in nanotechnology and molecular electronics. Previously, Jurvetson was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his communications chip designs were fabricated. His prior technical experience also includes programming, materials science research (TEM atomic imaging of GaAs), and computer design at HP's PC Division, the Center for Materials Research, and Mostek. He has also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT Software. As a consultant with Bain & Company, Jurvetson developed executive marketing, sales, engineering and business strategies for a wide range of companies in the software, networking, and semiconductor industries. At Stanford University, he finished his BSEE in 2.5 years and graduated #1 in his class as the Henry Ford Scholar. Jurvetson also holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He received his MBA from the Stanford Business School, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. Jurvetson also serves on the Merrill Lynch and STVP Advisory Boards and is Co-Chair of the NanoBusiness Alliance. He was honored as "The Valley's Sharpest VC" on the cover of Business 2.0 and chosen by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner as one of, "The ten people expected to have the greatest impact on the Bay Area in the early part of the 21st Century." He was profiled in the New York Times Magazine and also featured on the cover of Worth and Fortune magazines. Jurvetson was chosen by Forbes as one of "Tech's Best Venture Investors"; by the VC Journal as one of the "Ten Most Influential VCs"; and by Fortune as part of their "Brain Tr
Kim Smith is co-founder and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, which she established in 1998 to transform public education by supporting education entrepreneurs. In NewSchools, Kim created a new "hybrid" approach to investing in social entrepreneurs. NewSchools uses grants, loans and equity investments to support a portfolio that includes nonprofit and for-profit entrepreneurs who are building sustainable, scalable education ventures. Kim began her career as a consultant specializing in business-education partnerships. In 1989, she became a founding team member of Teach For America (TFA). She then put her TFA experience to work in the post of founding director of BAYAC AmeriCorps, a consortium of nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area working to develop young leaders in education. Kim's background includes marketing experience with Silicon Graphics' Education Industry Group, where she focused on the online learning industry, and her role as the founding director of a trade show venture. Kim holds a bachelor's degree in political science and psychology from Columbia College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2001, Kim was featured in Newsweek's report on the "Women of the 21st Century" as "the kind of woman who will shape America's new century." She is a member of the 2002 Class of Henry Crown Fellows of the Aspen Institute. Kim has also served on many education venture and advisory boards; these currently include EdVoice, the National Council on Teacher Quality, and the Stanford University School of Education.
Owners of growing companies need to begin positioning them for sale early in the life of the firm and continue to take steps toward sale throughout the business's life, writes an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Included are eight suggestions for doing just that.
Angel financing - or funding from individuals with the time and money to invest in early-stage companies - is more accessible thanks to the gathering of such investors into networks, writes an erstwhile entrepreneur turned angel investor. The process is still arduous, but the author offers tips for easing the way.
There is no doubt that it is a nearly impossible time for entrepreneurs to raise venture capital. Only the best of the best new companies are attracting such funding, according to the author. Entrepreneurs need to prepare themselves when approaching venture capitalists. Increasingly, several must have factors have become an essential part of the necessary preparation.
Young entrepreneurs with few contacts need to get real about raising money in a tough economy, and pursue avenues such as their own bank accounts, loans from parents and credit cards, writes the author. Another tactic is keeping costs low so that you need less money in the first place.
Entrepreneurs must identify ways to exit a business at the onset, which enables efforts to be directed to a goal, writes the builder of two companies. The author, now a venture capitalist, outlines four steps for doing so.
Vinod grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur. He was raised in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. When, at age 16, he first heard about Intel, he dreamt of starting his own technology company. Upon graduating with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he tried to start a soy milk company to service the many people in India who did not have refrigerators. He then came to the US and got his Masters in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie-Mellon University. His startup dreams attracted him to Silicon Valley where he got an MBA at Stanford University in 1980. In 1982, Khosla started Sun Microsystems to build workstations for software developers. At Sun he pioneered "open systems" and RISC processors. Sun was funded by long time friend and board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In 1986 he switched sides and joined Kleiner Perkins where he was a general partner. There, he worked with Nexgen/AMD, Juniper, Excite, and many other ventures. In 2004, Khosla formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in both traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile, and silicon technology arenas but also supports breakthrough scientific work in clean technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies.
Finding venture capital is a matter of securing the right fit between founder and funder, writes the author. Affinity with a investor helps, such as pursuing groups that finance the type of company that yours is, such as a minority- or female-led firm; also necessary is a plan outlining your company's financial prospects and a pitch for convincing investors that you can execute, the author notes.
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