Home- what i do
- @nikhilkal
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- VC at SoftBank CapitalVenture Capital & Private Equity | Greater New York City Area, USSummaryI'm an engineer, entrepreneur and product guy turned VC. I invest in startups via SoftBank Capital in NYC. Since joining in 2010, we've done 30+ investments include Buddy Media, Huffington Post, OMGPOP, Zynga and Gilt Groupe, although the firm has been investing since 1995.
I love ecommerce, mobile and startups with unfair advantages.
life = learning. so here’s some highlights:
Former engineer and UX designer. Worked in the intelligence community (let's leave it there). Learned you can’t over hire; pay up for great engineers.
Started a hedge fund. Raised it ‘06, managed it ‘07, left it Jan ‘08. Learned timing is everything.
Joined founding team at Localytics, providing mobile application analytics, participated in TechStars, and sold to 1000s of mobile app developers. Learned you can’t manage what you can’t measure. But screw managing if you know how to sell. Sales > all.
Let's build something amazing.Specialties: User Experience Design, Mobile tech, Social Media Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Product Management, Venture CapitalExperience- 2011 - PresentAdvisor / Gen Y CapitalGen Y Capital is a new model for seed stage venture funds endorsed by President Obama to provide capital, eliminate founders' student loans, offer free housing from universities, and peer-to-peer mentoring from successful founders under 35, including LivingSocial, iContact, Grasshopper, Mint.com, Startup Weekend, Threadless, Reddit, Justin.tv, Behance, Modcloth, 2tor and many more.
- Jun 2010 - PresentSenior Associate / SoftBank CapitalLeading early-stage venture capital investments in digital media, mobile and ecommerce.
- Apr 2009 - Jun 2010Director of Business Development & Marketing / LocalyticsLocalytics builds software platforms and tools for the developers of smartphone applications (BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian)
- Jul 2005 - Jul 2009Senior Design/Dev Engineer and Project Manager / The MITRE CorporationLeading decision support research and performing engineering consulting for several MITRE sponsors, including the Intelligence Community, Air Force, Dept of Homeland Security, and FAA. Responsibilities span engineering expertise, program management, and business analysis. Projects include chairing Customer Relationship Management initiatives, ROI analyses, process modeling, & workflow analysis. Industry domains include software design engineering, intelligence analysis, organizational change management, and R&D portfolio analysis
- Dec 2006 - Jan 2008Co-Founder, Managing Director / Partner6Set strategic vision and goals for Partner6 Investment Group. Managed team of 4 Fund Managers for Partner6's entire investment allocation. Identified and implemented enterprise-wide standards for financial analyses. Served as primary lead between Partner 6 and trading platforms.
Education- Harvard Business SchoolMBA in General Management
Activities: TechMedia Club Co-President - Tufts UniversityMS in Engineering Management
- Tufts University
- Westborough High School
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Honors:Command & Control Center (C2C) Award (MITRE, 2008) E543 Spot Award (MITRE, 2007) The deFlorez Prize in Human Engineering (Tufts University, 2005)
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Tweets
- nice shoutout @teisenmann Everyone’s Convinced That MBAs Are Useless, So Now Might Be a Good Time to Hire Them http://t.co/HPgUxGYUMay 17, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- I really did enjoy webutante. but apparently, I love Call Me Maybe. cc @andreahong @AlisaQMay 17, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- I just unlocked the "Warhol" badge on @foursquare! Gallerific! http://t.co/L7DfLkgt
- @PatrickDePuydt honestly, I don't think it is right for you! startup experience would be a great place to begin. Read #venturedeals
- @YuliZ @fashioninformer @janangale @vensette @laurenmbias @giltalexandra @estefalacayo @sorayadarabi #SelectNY is tag. See u at cafe select
- @sdonelian thanks! cc @skillshare
- @PatrickDePuydt no problem, glad you enjoyed it! @mikekarnj can you fix typo in my name on my @skillshare feedback?
- @m_aarti thx! Cc @skillshare
- Thx Rachel! @nycbabylon
- A superb summary. Completely agree. RT @bsiscovick: New post: It takes $30mm to train a VC http://t.co/qwZBDRGg
- @fredshilmover nice announcement today, Fred! congrats on the fundraise! cc @insightsquaredMay 14, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Yes! RT @bfeld: Should Your Board Members Be On The all@company.com Email List? http://t.co/LfwJa7cP
- Moments on Path: Mother’s Day Edition - thepersonalnetwork: http://t.co/KXrDFfLx
- getting a lot of the 'VC says this, but means what' questions: here's a starter on Partner meeting politics/strategy http://t.co/P3V4Y6ki
- it's not a bubble, more of a "winter is coming." better dress appropriately http://t.co/gnqHe81xMay 10, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- @ecachette don't be jelly! :)
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Posts
“Path was the missing link between me and my mother. I left Paris two years ago to come to Silicon Valley. I’ve lived abroad before in London and Berlin, but never this far. My mother is the person I used to interact with the most on a daily basis. Of course she was excited about the…
Great post by Roger McNamee and Mike Maples on the shifting digital landscape from the internet to the hypernet (web + cellular + wifi) and the hyperweb (new UX’s built on nodes and clouds not apps, browsers, and pages).
by @m2jr
Big Change #1: The Hypernet Emerges from the Web + Cellular + WiFi
It’s hard to believe that only 5 years ago, Microsoft Windows ran on over 95% of Internet-connected devices. For all practical purposes, smart phones were not even web capable. There were no tablets as they are currently conceived. It was a pretty simple Internet world. PCs with browsers and windowed interfaces and applications accessed a single worldwide web with linked pages indexed primarily by Google….
http://rogerandmike.com/post/16817783610/exploring-hypothesis-1-next-web-architecture
Avichal Garg, co-founder of Spool (www.getspool.com) writes an amazing post on focusing on teams, not #s of developers or hiring just for best available athletes.
Focus on building 10x teams, not on hiring 10x developers
There are a lot of posts out there about identifying and hiring 10x engineers. And a lot of discussion about whether or not these people even exist. At Spool, we’ve taken a very different approach. We focused on building a 10x team.
We believe that the effort spent trying to hire five 10x developers is better spent building one 10x team.
http://avichal.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/focus-on-building-10x-teams-not-on-hiring-10x-developers/
Alex Taub, Alex Taub. A name so nice I had to say it….again. Here he talks about the best venues in NYC for stuff. If you need help connecting with any of these folks feel free to reach out to Alex or myself.
People always email me asking about securing venues for events they are organizing. This post will include all the potential locations in NYC for events, how many people they can hold, the point people there, and the general feeling of what type of events make sense there.
Entrepreneurs are sales people. They mostly sell vision, but they have to sell themselves, their people, product, business and everything in between. My buddy @scottbrit nails it on helping you be a better salesperson, for anything. In this case he uses a Skillshare course as a metaphor, but it could be an event, your product, or pitch. Listen up.
I thought it’d be cool to expose some of the less obvious tactics I used to get people to sign up for my Skillshare class. A tweet here and there just doesn’t cut it for the young and hungry. Sometimes you need to put the warpaint on.
http://life-longlearner.com/post/11907107755/guerilla-tactics-selling-a-skillshare-class-case-study
potential cover of our upcoming book entitled Adventure Capital. amazing work conor! #BFFphotographer
NYC Earthquake Devastation
(via http://jmckinley.posterous.com/dc-earthquake-devastation)
- scared investors + your failing startup = #nycwinning
Seems to be an unending supply of first-time nyc entrepreneurs. Some are building products, some are building businesses. All are getting awesome experience under their belts that, due to recent market, economic, and technical infrastructure conditions have encouraged people to start something baller. But to build a prosperous and long-term startup-ecosystem we all know we need 2-3 big companies to exit and for their key talent to do it all over again. But where does that initial talent come from? History indicates that they come from BOTH failed startups and successful ones. Case in point- almost every rockstar entrepreneur out there, failed significantly in at least one of their first few ventures.
So, back to the title. The immediate impact of the down market is that some angel investors are now unable to invest at the rate/level they would like to. Oh noes. More for me. Seriously though, I would argue this is not a major detriment to the ecosystem. Here’s why:
+Cheaper to do a lot with less money
+Many investors have moved earlier stage
+Super Angels/MicroVCs emerged to fill-in the seed investing gapSure there is less venture money and firms and more entrepreneurs than there were 5 years ago, but that is in aggregate. In early stage, NYC has seen a dramatic increase in early stage dollar and number of investments on a per entrepreneur basis (note: this includes unfunded entrepreneurs!)
For the most part, the investors unable to invest due to current market conditions are likely unsophisticated investors that don’t know the difference between a convertible w/ a cap and the new roadster drop top they can no longer afford.
Don’t take their money. You don’t need it. You’ve really learned a ton during your recent entrepreneurial endeavor and there is smart money to be had. If this is longer term down-turn, then there is NO BETTER TIME to launch a startup. Google it. Cliffnotes: talent is cheaper/available, customers are willing to explore cheaper options, incumbents are hampered with paying for 25000 mouths to feed while you are still barely (not) feeding 5. Lastly, if your venture has run it’s course you can still be a part of this ecosystem in a larger and more successful startup. You can be a part of the management team that seeds hundreds of new startups! Every one of these options is awesome and I can’t wait to see which one you take.
- Interviewing: Come Bearing Gifts
My buddy Steve Schlafman at Lerer Ventures is awesome. You should bring him a gift.
via schlafnotes:
I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while and Tristan Walker’s latest post on how he got his job at Foursquare inspired me to take the plunge this weekend. Interviewing is a necessary evil in our society and we all need to go through the process at some point in our lives (unless we’re born entrepreneurs). There are countless books written about the topic and thousands of self-proclaimed experts who try to prep us so we’re ready to handle any conceivable question. There are even entire MBA courses devoted to the subject. Those types of resources have certainly helped hundreds of thousands if not millions of job candidates around the world land the job of their dreams. The reality is, however, that jobs are more competitive than ever before and the traditional interview is changing, especially in the startup world. You’re not going to land the perfect job by just having a solid resume anymore, you need to find ways to differentiate yourself.
Throughout my career, I’ve learned, first hand, that the best resumes don’t always win. The people who win interviews, more often than not, are the ones who run through walls to demonstrate that they’re deeply passionate about the role and the company. They go the extra mile. The winners track down colleagues and acquaintances who are connected to the company and hiring managers. They also send catchy and convincing emails like the one that Tristan sent to Dennis and Naveen. Most importantly, they bring gifts to the interview and shower the hiring manager with confidence. What do I mean by that?
Gifts, in an interviewing context, are the things that resumes will never be able to communicate. They’re the ideas, the relationships, the execution, the intangibles that are impossible to capture on paper. There are a variety gifts that a candidate can bring along to an interview and here are some of them based on my experience.- Be a power user: Over the weekend, I was enjoying a cold beer with “Mike Karnj” Founder and CEO of Skillshare, and he explained that he would rather hire one of his teachers or community members over a random candidate. “You know they’re already passionate about the product and engaged with the community which is a huge advantage, he told me.”
- Come with prospects: If you’re in Business Development or Sales and interviewing for a role, you should prepare a high level sales plan, develop a target customer list, and be prepared to make introductions to high quality prospects. In the last four months, I’ve seen several startups hire VPs of Business Development who brought customers in the door during the interview process. That’s how competitive it is our there. In fact, when I was going through the Lerer Ventures interview loop, I connected the partners with several entrepreneurs who weren’t on the firm’s radar.
- Share fresh ideas: When prepping for an interview a candidate should spend at least twelve hours studying the company, the market and the product. Seriously. It takes that much time and more. At the conclusion of this deep dive, you should have a solid understanding of what the company does well, where they need to improve, how they’re vulnerable and a sense of what the short-and long-term strategy should be. You should then pull together a handful of PowerPoint slides which includes an analysis of the product / business and provides actionable recommendations. This will demonstrate to the hiring manager how you think about their business. You’d be shocked how few candidates actually do this.
- Demo your work: Come prepared to show your demos, code, and / or portfolio of work. Paper and ink can’t and will never be able to bring your past projects to life (unless you’re Steve Jobs), so compile your best work and let it stand on its own.
- Offer a free trial: Following the interview, ask the hiring manager if you can help him or her with a small project to demonstrate your competencies. For example, when I was interviewing for my role at The Kraft Group, I asked Mr. Kraft and Jonathan if I could analyze an investment to show off my skills. Without much haggling, they agreed. The opportunity that I analyzed and recommended was Quattro Wireless which was acquired by Apple last year.
- Become fluent: Learn how to speak their language. For example, Zynga works in “Zynga time” and there are hundreds of other examples. I particularly liked this post by Adam Ludwin who touches upon this point.
If you take anything away from this blog post, do everything in your power throughout the interview process to prove that you can do the job better than anyone else starting immediately. Show you can deliver value even before you leave your first interview. If you’re successful in doing this, the hiring manager will have confidence in you and you’ll make the hiring decision more difficult. As you can see from above, there are many different gifts (and probably many more) that you can offer to separate yourself from the pack. The next time you’re gunning for your dream job, bring gifts and you’ll be at an advantage. Good luck!
- The VC I Want to Be
I LOVE my job and want to be great at it. I’ve spent several days over the last few months reflecting on where I’m heading and the person I’d like to be. Much of that will be reflected in my professional style and brand, So here’s a very public stake in the ground which should help me both commit and reflect back in a few years. Thanks to @bussgang and @joevc for inspiration.
The VC I Want to Be follows a few principles to guide behavior and decision making.
1. Earn trust, don’t expect it. In first meetings it’s easy to list hashable cred and who you know in order to impress people, but by the end of any relationship, people will remember you for the way you treated them. For my style, this translates to demonstrable integrity and honesty. I’ve been able to witness our partners give advice to entrepreneurs that is entirely opposed to SoftBank’s interests (e.g. don’t take our money, investor xyz would be a better fit), but is the right direction for the startup. In every case you earn the respect of the entrepreneur, which is more valuable professionally AND financially in the long run.
2. Understanding the entrepreneur. I am a bit fearful of becoming an arrogant prick, which I hope is key to avoiding becoming an arrogant prick. Sure, VCs are busy but the person on the other side of the table has spent countless hours preparing for a meeting in which to talk about what could be his or her life’s work/passion. At one point in time I was turned down by many VC’s. However, those that said ‘no’ in the right way are now my colleagues, friends and even co-investors. This level of professionalism and humility is never negotiable, and stems from a keen sense of empathy.
3. Be self-aware. Do I honestly know what my value add is to startups today? I’m fully aware that today my value add is minimal compared any VC veteran, but that it grows each day. I believe my pitch for differentiation today is: my training as an engineer doing UX and front end design, working with startups and mobile apps since pre-App Store, and having a sense of entrepreneurship from TechStars, my ventures and my father’s biotech startups. I’m also aware that all of that can be worth jack if it’s not applicable to your specific startup. So, every month I intend to pick a startup and ask for feedback on my ability and value as a VC.Lastly, I’d like to ask for your help in achieving these goals. I welcome unsolicited feedback and suggestions to be a great VC. I respond to EVERY email (I try for within 48hrs), live at General Assembly, and can be found on the interwebs via @nikhilkal and nikhil@softbank.com.
- When to launch?
An entrepreneur asked me a question today, “Should I launch this NOW or in a couple months once it’s a little more polished.” Often, sooner to MVP the better, but most importantly you can be shielded by Moore’s “Chasm.” In other words, early adopters are a small % of your customer/user population. They have a huge tolerance for crappy products and, ultimately, are not the mass audience you are seeking. Don’t fear the no-man’s land between early adopters and mainstream. Use the Chasm Shield.
Some thoughts from Tom Eisenmann’s course on Launching Technology Ventures and Eric Ries’s Lean Startup Methodology:
Launch now (obvi):
- With high uncertainty about problem and solution you need to LEARN, and market feedback is an excellent professor.
- A radically new product must be observed in use in order to refine it
- Stealth not needed. ”I dare you to try to get a big company to steal your idea.” -Eric Ries
Hell no:
- Disruption of mission critical activity (e.g. Dropbox vs IMVU)
- Early adopters’ needs don’t match mainstream’s needs
- Reputational risk, especially with viral consumer products or highly concentrated market
My friend robgo has an amazing post about entrepreneurial advice to students. I know he’s honest because it wasn’t too long ago I was going to Rob for advice on startups and venture. This topic really hits home for me because I’ve been a student launching a finance firm, a student at TechStars at a tech firm, and a student trying to engage the VC community on both coasts. Rob really hit it on the head:
1. Get out there.
2. Use all the resources.
3. Take a risk.
4. Build something. No build anything.
5. Be authentic. #5 is most important in my book, although so hard - You can many learn new things about yourself from doing #1-4.
I was inspired to write this post after speaking with a group of students at Northeastern this past week. What was most impressive was that this group of ~20 aspiring entrepreneurs actually came out and engaged in a great dialog while most of their peers were engaging in St. Patrick’s Day…
Great visualization of when and how valley VC invested in some of the leading consumer web services.
NSFW. Are you iterating? You have to get out of the building to iterate. Are you out of the building?
Make sure you are iterating. Thanks @EricRies
- Summer in VC with SoftBank Capital
We are looking to hire one MBA and one undergrad to join SoftBank Capital for eight weeks this summer as paid interns in our office in Newton, MA.
Our fund is focused on entrepreneurs building socially-driven apps, services and content that are accessible across platforms and devices. We have been making early stage investments since 1995 in companies such as Yahoo!, E*Trade, GSI Commerce, The Huffington Post, Buddy Media, BuzzFeed, and MocoSpace. We are affiliated with SoftBank Corp., the exclusive distributor of the iPhone and iPad in Japan, and an investor in later stage US companies such as Zynga. To learn more, visit www.softbank.com.
Interns will actively participate in the review of the industry landscape, identifying and assessing potential investments, and helping support existing portfolio companies. They will be required to spend a portion of their days downloading new apps, hanging out on Twitter, and playing games. To accept this challenge, you must first have a passionate interest in startups and digital media. We’re looking for students who have the base knowledge and initiative to contribute to the team over a relatively short time frame.
To apply, please email contactus@softbank.com with a succinct summary of your:- Online Presence - Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
- Digital Portfolio - Describe your favorite sites, apps and devices, including your mobile phone and/or tablet
- Digital Outlook - Tell us what are the most popular, emerging digital services amongst your peers, and which ones you think have mainstream, commercial potential
We have a preference for MBAs completing their first year and undergrads completing their junior year. The deadline for applications is February 28. - How does an entrepreneur choose an angel investor?
A friend at Dorsey and Whitney passed on some research from 363 surveyed tech startup CEOs that have recently or will soon (+/- 12 months) raise a first or second round of funding. As shown below, the top 6 things reported (after which there is a precipitous drop) are valuation, dilution, liquidation preference, board control/seat, specialist in my space,and ability to bring in key customers. Digging into the numbers a bit, about 47% raised or are seeking to raise <$500K primarily from angels. In my discussions with several of the Boston based angel-funded companies, they also mentioned brand name, having a pre-existing relationship or synergistic but non-competitive portfolio companies as other key elements to selecting their first investors.
See the full report at http://www.dorsey.com/files/upload/ceo_survey_report.pdf
So what does this mean to be a desirable angel investor or entrepreneur?
1. Be clear and knowledgeable about standard term sheets. Some firms and investors lead the pack and now have the gold standard of term sheets. In my order of preference:
b. Ycombinator’s open source term sheet for Seed deals
c. TechStars
d. Law Firms: Notably, Fenwick & West & Wilson Sonsini’s ”term sheet generator”
2. Eric Ries told me “there are two types of entrepreneurs, those who can get funding easily and those who can’t.” If you aren’t sure you are the former, you are the latter. If that’s true, then seriously consider weighing control measures, specialist, and key customers over brand, valuation, etc.
3. Trust. Each founder I interviewed mentioned that trust in his angel investor was the single determining factor regarding evaluating their investment experience. This requires time and diligence, which are often in short supply at the time of signing term sheets. The best proxies are solid introductions and a positive feedback from past similar investments.
- Mo money mo problems
It’s relatively easy to get money right now. Clearly, this is great for entrepreneurs and bad for investors. However, many seed investors are saying they are being as selective as ever. Perhaps this means there are simply more entrepreneurs and startups than we’ve ever seen. Many of these startups can’t get a top engineer for .25% of the company in a series A anymore, but they are more able to set pricing with new price-insensitive angels. Here are the takes from some of the industry’s thought leaders:
- Chris Sacca: “I think at the high end, it’s not that frothy, but there’s a lot of exuberance in the early-stage stuff…A lot of the valuations there don’t make a lot of sense.”
- Roger Ehrenberg: ”Investing in technology has become fashionable…It used to be that angel investing was the province of wealthy men. Now its become the province of everyone.” (Really? We think it’s still for the wealthy, not a lot of blue collar angel investors out there.)
- Jeff Clavier: ”There may not be a big implosion, but down the road there will be a bunch of blood and tears….The music is going to stop and people will realize there aren’t enough chairs for companies to get the next round of financing.”
- Dave McClure: “I’m not saying Quora, Foursquare, Square aren’t eventually worth a lot of money, but the price to pay to get into those games is kind of amazing — $50 to $80 million? … These companies are in big markets with proven founders, so maybe not absolutely crazy but certainly eyebrow-raising.”
- Ron Conway: “All the start-ups today have business models and business cases that make them viable…In 1999 when the bubble happened many companies did not have business models and advertising on the Web was very immature.” (This seems like the most reasonable quote of the bunch, and it comes from the most prolific angel investor of them all.)
Thanks to Jay Yarrow from Business Insider and Naval from Venture Hacks!http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-money-2010-9
http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-bubble-2010-12
http://startupboy.com/2010/12/01/there-is-no-angel-bubble-there-are-many-angel-bubbles/
