Tag Archives: deals

Victor Belfor, Ben Smith: Backing A College Dropout Might Be Your Smartest Investment Strategy

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

  I recently invested in two companies whose founders either had little interest in school as students or who dropped out of grad school: MixRank and Influitive. Both management teams are driven, hard working and well prepared for the difficult road … Continue reading →

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Victor Belfor, Ben Smith: We’ll Trade 100 Employees For One A-Player | peHUB

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Mark Zuckerberg famously commented that a great engineer is worth a 100 average engineers (something every developer knows deep in her heart). He was talking about A-players, and in our opinion the worst thing any startup can do is accept … Continue reading →

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Maximilian Schroeck, Ben Smith: Unlocking Value From A Portfolio’s Walking Dead | | peHUBpeHUB

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

We have all seen it. A startup has initial success with an innovative business concept, an early product, a first or second round of capital and a spurt of revenue growth. Then suddenly, its momentum stalls. More than 50% of … Continue reading →

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peHUB » Doug Kilponen, Ben Smith: First They Ignore You, Then They Want To Buy You: Managing The Startup-Big Company Relationship

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Every entrepreneur has met them. Big company executives with big company swagger. They ignore you. They dismiss the business problem you spent your life solving. They think they can crush you. Then the tables turn. They push for strategic relationships. … Continue reading →

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Economic Principles Return circa 2001

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Economic Principles Return circa 2001 Originally printed in one of the boom time internet magazines, one of my co workers from the period saw one of my recent articles and dug this one up and send to me.  I wonder … Continue reading →

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The Deal is Done. MerchantCirlce is now part of Reply!Media.

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

The Deal is Done. MerchantCirlce is now part of Reply!Media in a $60MM deal. If you missed this morning’s announcement, I’m happy to share the news that we are now officially part of Reply! Media.The last few weeks have been … Continue reading →

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Same Page from Go

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Co-founder Wayne Yamamoto joined us in our reminiscing. He tweeted this image from our first pitch presentation. From the very beginning MerchantCircle has been on the same page as Reply!. We had no idea then, we’d end up as a … Continue reading →

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MerchantCircle Acquired by Reply!

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Yesterday’s news was a major milestone and we are so thankful to everyone who reached out. Anyone who knows a MerchantCircle team member can attest to how totally dedicated this group of colleagues has been to our users, our products … Continue reading →

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Are the Billions Justified for Groupon?

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Are the Billions Justified for Groupon? Are the Billions Justified for Groupon? originally published in VC Journal Groupon’s potential $15 billion valuation may seem astronomical, but its high price tag may be justified. Groupon is one of only a handful … Continue reading →

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Great Advice from Steve Blank..

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Ben T. Smith, IV

I will not be adding another non failure from Stanford GSB today.  All my very successful friends from GSB are now asking so I think I have a blog a day for about 60 days. Instead I wanted to call … Continue reading →

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