Books – Grace Gong

My Books

How To Be A VC

(No.1 New Release in Amazon Venture Capital Category)

If you are young and want to explore investment in technology? If you are just someone wanting to be the boss of your industry? This book will guide your way. The book featured exclusive stories with some of the top venture capitalists. They were featured on the Forbes Midas List. The investors invested in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Snapchat, Salesforce, Linkedin, eBay, Twitch and many other iconic companies. This book is a collection on how investors get into investing.

The Last Key To Success

This book is a short guide for people in their 20’s trying to create a company in America. It includes 21 successful founders. In it, each founder covers about 2 out of the 13 topics below to share their opinions and personal experiences from when they started their own business.

How do you start a company ?
How do you capitalize on resources, experiences, and strengths—and manage weaknesses?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of co-founders, teammates, and mentors?
How do you support yourself when starting a company—financially and personally?
How did you develop your product?
How did you deal with competition, audience, and trends?
How do you operate and manage your company?
How did you get funding and develop your business model?
How do you contemplate scalability and growth for your company?
What are sales and marketing tactics that have worked for your company?
How do you handle challenges of the global marketplace, including visas and the legal system?
How have you dealt with failures?
What is the most important advice you would give to first-time founders?

Successful VCs

Here is a list of successful VCs that are featured in How to Be a VC!

Dick Kramlich

C. Richard Kramlich. Co-Founder of NEA, Chairman Emeritus at NEA, Co-founder of Green Bay Ventures. NEA has a portfolio including Apple, Powerpoint, Juniper Networks. Dick is co-founder Chairman Emeritus of NEA. NEA is the venture firm that raises the most amount of capital. Now he has founded his new fund Green Bay venture partners. Dick began his venture career in 1969 as a General Partner with Arthur Rock and Co. In 1977, Dick was an early investor in Apple Computer for his own account. Since co-founding NEA in 1978, he has been involved in ten companies that have grown from start-up or near start-up stage to companies with market value in excess of $1 billion. Before entering venture, Dick served in the Air Force, went to Harvard Business School after study at Northwestern for undergrad.

Mike Maples

Mike Maples, Jr., Co-founder of Floodgate. Floodgate has a portfolio including Twitter, Lyft, Chegg, Twitch, Weebly, and Xamarin. Mike went to Stanford University for his undergraduate degree. He worked at SGI and he got his MBA at Harvard University. Afterward he joined the startup team at Tivoli Systems and then founded his own company, Motive. Both went IPO. Then he started his own fund, called Floodgate. Mike has been on the Forbes Midas List every year since 2011 and was ranked #19 in 2017. He was named one of the “8 Rising Stars” by Fortune magazine.

Mitch Lasky

Mitch Lasky, General Partner at Benchmark. Portfolio including: Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP), Riot Games, and Discord. Mitch is an early investor in Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP). He and his firm Benchmark held about 13% of the social media company at the time of the IPO, good for $3.2 billion at Snap’s $25 billion market capitalization at the time. He also invested in Riot Games, maker of the popular game League of Legends. Mitch is currently a board member of thatgamecompany, Snapchat, Discord, Outpost Games, Hound Labs, and PlayFab. Mitch has spent more than two decades in the mobile gaming, new media, and interactive entertainment businesses. Prior to joining Benchmark, Mitch served as executive vice president of Mobile and Online at Electronic Arts. Previously, he was chairman and chief executive officer of JAMDAT Mobile, Inc (NASDAQ: JMDT), the leading global publisher of wireless entertainment applications. He joined as a startup in 2000, took the company public in 2004, and sold it to EA in 2006. Prior to JAMDAT, Mitch served as general manager of eCompanies Wireless LLC, a startup incubator. He spent five years at Activision, the world’s largest game publisher, most recently as executive vice president of Worldwide Studios. Earlier in his career, Mitch practiced intellectual property law, worked at the Walt Disney Company, and started a massive multiplayer online game company. Mitch went to Harvard University and earned his JD at the University of Virginia.

Brad Feld

Brad Fled

Brad Feld, Co-founder of Foundry Group. Foundry Group has a portfolio including Zynga, Techstars, and Fitbit. Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur for over 30 years. He is a managing director at Foundry Group, where he focuses on early-stage information technology startups like Makerbot, Fitbit, and Zynga. Brad co-founded Techstars, Mobius Venture Capital, and Intensity Ventures. Prior to becoming a VC, Brad started his own company called Feld Technologies after he graduated from MIT.

David Cowan

David Cowan, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. Bessemer Venture Partners has a portfolio including including LinkedIn, Pinterest, Yelp, and Skype. David invested in LinkedIn, Smule, and Twitch, among others. He has recently focused on security and space. David has been with Bessemer Venture Partners for 25 years. He launched the firm’s practices in cloud infrastructure, consumer tech, cyber-security and space tech. He was ranked #6 on the Forbes Midas List, which has included David 13 times. Before becoming a VC, David studied computer science and mathematics at Harvard University. He has an MBA from Harvard as well.

Bing Gordon

Bing Gordon, Chief Product Officer at KPCB. KPCB has a notable portfolio, which includes Google, Twitter, SNAP, and Spotify. Bing is Chief Product Officer at KPCB. He was a founding director and investor at Audible (acquired by Amazon in 2008), Katango (acquired by Google in 2011), and Ngmoco (acquired by DeNA 2010). He served ten years as the Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts. He is currently a board member of Airtime, Linden Labs, N3twork, Zazzle, and Zynga, and board observer at Amazon, Betterworks, Duolingo, Tradesy, and Victorious. Bing also led KPCB’s sFund, the investment initiative to fund companies that deliver on the promise of the social web, with strategic partners Amazon.com, Facebook, Zynga, Comcast, Liberty Media, and Allen Co. Bing earned a BA from Yale University in literature and drama, and an MBA from Stanford University.

Paul Madera

Paul Madera, Co-founder of Meritech Capital Partners. Meritech Capital Partners has a portfolio including Facebook, Salesforce, and Yammer. Paul is a co-founder of Meritech Capital Partners, where he focuses on late-stage investing. He earned his MBA from Stanford GSB. Paul has invested in SaaS financial technology, digital consumer, and medical device sectors. Paul was the Managing Director and head of the private equity group at Montgomery Securities/Bank of America, and was also an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. Before entering VC, Paul served in the US Air Force as an F-16 fighter pilot.

Asheem Chandna

Asheem Chandna, Partner at Greylock Partners. Greylock Partners has investments including AppDynamics, Palo Alto Networks, Rubrik, Imperva, Sourcefire, Skyhigh Networks, and Sumo Logic. Asheem Chandna is a partner at Greylock, where he focuses on investing in B2B SaaS investing. Asheem was named an enterprise software guru by Forbes Magazine. Asheem served as a founding investor of AppDynamics, which was acquired by Cisco for $3.7 billion, and was a founding investor at Palo Alto Networks, which had a recent market cap over $13 billion. Asheem has been featured on the Forbes Midas List for the last six years. In 2017, he was also listed as one of the world’s top 20 venture capitalists by the New York Times.

Sandy Miller

Sandy Miller, General Partner at IVP. IVP has a portfolio including Netflix, Dropbox, SNAP, Twitter, and Supercell. Sandy has appeared on the Forbes Midas list nine times. He has been involved in over 100 IPOs. Sandy invested in Zynga, Supercell, and many more successful companies that went public or were acquired by big companies such as Oracle. Sandy holds an MBA and a law degree from Stanford University.

Promod Haque

Promod Haque, Senior Managing Partner at Norwest Venture Partners. Promod’s investments at NVP include Apigee (acquired by Google, Nasdaq: APIC); FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE); Skybox Imaging (acquired by Google for $500 million); Cyan (acquired by Ciena); Cerent (acquired by Cisco for $7.2 billion); and Extreme Networks (Nasdaq: EXTR). Promod Haque has invested in more than 70 companies during his career as managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners. To date, his investments are worth more than $40 billion in aggregate exit value. Twenty-five of his portfolio companies have gone public and 37 have been acquired (or have gone public and then been acquired). He has appeared on the Forbes Midas List 13 times. He was ranked #1 on the list in 2004 for his performance over the previous decade. In 2014 and 2016, Forbes recognized Promod as a “Hall of Fame” investor. He has been honored with several industry awards, including the 2006 NASSCOM Global Leadership Award, the 2011 Silicon Valley Forum Visionary Award and the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from Venture Capital Journal.

Ray Rothrock

Ray Rothrock, CEO of RedSeal, Partner Emeritus (former Managing General Partner) of Venrock. Venrock has a portfolio including Spyglass, Check Point, DoubleClick, Imperva, Vontu, Tri Alpha Energy, Tudou, and Nest. Ray has served as a general partner at Venrock since 1988. He is currently the CEO of RedSeal, a Venrock portfolio company. He invested in 53 companies, including over a dozen in cybersecurity such as Vontu, PGP, P-Cube, Imperva, CloudFlare, CTERA, and Shape Security. Ray is chair of the National Venture Capital Association for the 2012— 2013 term and was featured on the Forbes Midas List twice. Ray’s investments focus on energy, information technology infrastructure, and cyber security. He led Venrock’s Internet investment strategy beginning in 1992, and in 2004 initiated the firm’s energy investment strategy. As some of his outside activities, Ray served on the Visiting Committee of the MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. He served as Trustee of the Texas A&M Foundation and chaired the investment committee of its $1 billion endowment. Today, he’s a director of UTIMCO, The University of Texas/Texas A&M University Investment Company, a $40 billion public endowment. He is also a Member of the MIT Corporation. He also plays the bass guitar in the band, “Up and to the Right” whose name is a play on his life as a VC.

Ann Miura Ko

Ann Miura Ko, Co-founder of Floodgate. Floodgate has a portfolio including Twitter, Lyft, and Refinery29. Ann was named the most powerful woman in startups by Forbes Magazine. Before co-founding her own venture firm, Floodgate, Ann worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. She also taught courses in entrepreneurship with Steve Blank at Stanford University. Ann invested in Lyft, Refinery 29, ModCloth, and TaskRabbit, among others. Ann holds a PhD from Stanford University and studied electrical engineering at Yale University.

Dan Levitan

Dan Levitan, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Maveron. Maveron has a portfolio including Zulily, Allbirds, Common, August Home, eBay, Capella Education, General Assembly, and Trupanion. Dan co-founded Maveron, the consumer-only venture capital firm, with the former CEO and Executive Chairman of Starbucks, Howard Schultz. Dan is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Business School. After school, Dan spent 15 years in investment banking, where he focused primarily on consumer businesses. As a managing director at Schroder Wertheim & Co., Dan met Howard Schultz when they worked together on the Starbucks IPO. Dan helped more than 100 companies go public, make strategic acquisitions, and monetize the equity value they had created. Dan has led many of Maveron’s successful investments, including Zulily (NASDAQ:ZU), Trupanion (NASDAQ:TRUP), Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA), and Potbelly Corporation (NASDAQ:PBPB). Dan has acted as a board member to numerous private, public, and philanthropic organizations, including the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, where he regularly acts as a judge and mentor in the annual New Venture Competition. He serves on the board of the Seattle Children’s Hospital Foundation and is currently the chairman of Hope for Heroism, a charity that helps wounded Israeli combat soldiers. Dan has also been featured on the Forbes Midas List.

Jim Robinson

Jim Robinson, Co-founder and General Partner at RRE Ventures. RRE Ventures has a portfolio including Vocera, Buzzfeed, Makerbot, Venmo, Vine, and Wisdomtree. Jim is the co-founder and general partner at RRE Ventures, based in New York. He has been recognized on the Forbes Midas List of Top 100 VCs, as well as Institutional Investors’ Fintech 35. Recent-year exits include Wisdomtree (WETF), Vocera (VCRA) and iCrossing (Hearst). Prior investments include Broadsoft (BSFT), Enpirion (Altera), GoldPocket/Wireless (Tandberg/Motricity), Metapath (Marconi), Mixed Signals (Tektronix), Red Brick (REDB), RevolutionMoney (American Express), Rubric (Broadbase), SmartPay (Ping An), Telocity (Hughes), Vastera (VAST/JPM), and WeddingChannel (TheKnot.com). Before founding RRE, Jim ran his own startup in college, worked at JP Morgan & Company, and also at H&Q Venture Capital. Jim holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a joint degree in computer science and business administration from Antioch College. He is a director of the Empire State Realty Trust, the New York City Partnership Investment Fund, and the HBSNY Alumni Angels.

Charles Moldow

Charles Moldow, General Partner at Foundation Capital. Foundation Capital has a portfolio including Lending Club, Lending Home, AdRoll, Health IQ, and CoverWallet. Charles is a general partner at Foundation Capital. His current portfolio includes AdRoll, auxmoney, BlockCypher, Finxera (formerly Bancbox), HealthIQ, Lending Club (IPO 2014), LendingHome, Motif Investing, On Deck Capital (IPO 2014), Rappi, and States Title. In all, he’s made sixteen successful investments since joining Foundation Capital in 2005. Of those investments, Lending Club, OnDeck and EverydayHealth have gone public. In 2016, CB Insights listed Charles among The Top 100 Venture Capitalists, and Forbes named him to the Midas List for the second time—citing among other factors his deep experience in all things marketplace lending. In the same year, before joining Foundation Capital, Charles served on the founding team of two high-profile startups. He is an alumnus of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Harvard Business School.

Robert Nelsen

Robert Nelsen, Co-founder and Managing Director at ARCH Venture Partners. ARCH Venture Partners has a portfolio including Juno Therapeutics, GRAIL, Agios Pharmaceuticals, Illumina, Hua Medicine, Denali Therapeutics, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), and Sage Therapeutics (SAGE). Bob is a co-founder of ARCH Venture Partners. Over more than 30 years, he has invested in seed and early stage companies, 19 of which reached a valuation exceeding $1 billion. His companies have completed over 30 IPOs. He is a director of Vir Biotechnology, GRAIL, Juno Therapeutics, Denali Therapeutics, Arivale, and Syros Pharmaceuticals, among others. He also serves as the chairman of Hua Medicine. He formerly served as a trustee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute and the Institute for Systems Biology, and as a director of the National Venture Capital Association. Bob holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BS from the University of Puget Sound with majors in economics and biology.

Deborah Farrington

Deborah Farrington, Co-founder and Managing Partner of StarVest Partners. StarVest Partners has a portfolio including NetSuite (Acquired by Oracle), Veracode (Acquired by CA Technologies), MessageOne (acquired by Dell), Fieldglass (Acquired by SAP), iCrossing (Acquired by Hearst), AppDirect, Persado, and Transactis. Deborah is the co-founder and managing general partner of StarVest Partners, one of the largest women majority-owned venture capital firms in the US. Deborah primarily invests in technology-enabled business services with a focus on software-as-a-service, data & analytics, and internet marketing. She was a finalist in finance for the World Technology Awards and was featured on the Forbes Midas List in 2008, 2009 and 2011. Her portfolio company NetSuite was acquired by Oracle for $9.4 billion in November 2016. She served as lead director from NetSuite’s IPO in 2007 through its acquisition by Oracle. Prior to her investing career, she was CEO & president of Victory Ventures, chairman of Staffing Resources, the managing director of an Asian based merchant bank, a vice-president of Merrill Lynch, and an assistant treasurer at JP Morgan Chase & Company. She is a graduate and Trustee of Smith College, and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where she has endowed the Fellowship for Women Entrepreneurs.

Ross Jaffe

Ross Jaffe, MD, Co-founder and Managing Director at Versant Ventures. His portfolio at Versant Ventures has included Insulet, Acclarent, and St. Francis Medical Technology. Ross Jaffe is a venture capitalist who focuses on early-stage investing in medical technology. Ross is a Managing Director of Versant Ventures, a firm he co-founded in 1999 after starting his venture career at Brentwood Venture Capital in 1990, where, as a general partner, he led investments in medical devices, drug delivery, and healthcare information systems companies. During his more than twenty-seven years in venture capital, Ross has served on the boards of a number of successful life science companies, including Acclarent, St Francis Medical Technologies, Ablation Frontiers, Insulet, Therasense, Novacept, Micro Interventional Systems, and Webster Laboratories. He currently serves on the boards of AlterG and Minerva Surgical. Ross has been recognized on Forbes Magazine’s “Midas List” of the top 100 venture capitalists in 2008, 2011, and 2012. Active in the healthcare venture capital community, Ross has served as a Director of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC). He is currently a Director of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC), an FDA-industry collaboration to advance regulatory science, where he served as the Board Champion for the Patient Centered Benefit-Risk Project. Ross also chairs the Board of Overseers of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. In 2017, Ross was honored for his work on behalf of the venture capital industry and medical innovation by the NVCA with its Outstanding Service Award.

Jim Boettcher

Jim Boettcher, General Partner and Co-Founder of Focus Ventures. Focus Ventures with a portfolio including Apigee (Acquired by Google), P.A. Semi (Acquired by Apple), and Pure Digital Technologies (Acquired by Cisco). Jim is a co-founder and General Partner of Focus Ventures. He is also a co-founder of and serves as a venture partner and advisor to the Mingxin China Growth Fund. He also serves on the Advisory Committees for both GSR Ventures and Berkeley Earth. While at Focus, he has led successful investments including Starent Networks, NetScaler, Pure Digital, Cyan Optics, Marin Software, Infoblox and others. He was a Co-Founder in 1986 and a Managing Director of Amsterdam Pacific Corporation, which was purchased by a large European bank in 1994. Prior to forming Amsterdam Pacific Corporation, he served as a Vice President in the telecommunications section of Bank of America’s Investment Banking Group, where he led media and high technology assignments in the United States, Europe and the Far East. Outside of his work at Focus, he has successful investments in companies such as ONI, Alteon, Prism Radio Partners, Deeptech, Hello Direct, US Filter, and USA Waste. Jim lead many late stage investments including chip designer P.A. Semi, which was sold to Apple for $278 million. The technology provided 10 hours of battery power in Apple’s iPad. Jim earned an MBA and MS from Stanford University, and his Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin.

Tim Chang

Tim Chang, Partner at Mayfield. Mayfield’s portfolio includes companies such as Marketo (IPO), SolarCity (IPO), Moat (acquired by Oracle), ServiceMax (acquired by GE), Lyft, Poshmark, Crunchbase, HashiCorp, Couchbase, MapR, Outreach, Grove Collaborative, Classpass, and Massdrop. Tim leads consumer technology investments at Mayfield focusing on next-gen Commerce & Marketplaces, Communities, Health & Wellness and Digital Media, and has been named to the Forbes Midas List and the AlwaysOn Power Players of top investors, as well as receiving the Special Achievement award from the Gamification Summit for his work in leveraging game design thinking. Tim has led early stage investments in Iridigm, Playdom, ngmoco, Basis, AdChina, and Moat, creating more than $2.6B in total exit value. His current portfolio includes Grove Collaborative, Massdrop, Ript Labs, Classpass, HealthTap, TRIPP, Next Entertainment, Pillow, Lantern, and 3Drobotics. Tim holds an MBA with honors from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and MSEE/BSEE from the University of Michigan. Tim is an accomplished musician who performs with multiple bands, and is passionate about leveraging technology with wisdom to boost consciousness and fitness across body, mind and spirit.

Rich Levandov

Rich Levandov, Partner at Avalon Ventures. Avalon Ventures has a portfolio including Zynga, Phoenix Technologies, Tacoda, Tremor Video, Cloudant, Cloudkick, Art Technology Group, Smyte, Primer.ai, Averon, Aol, and Talla. Rich got his BS from Binghamton University, co-founded Phoenix Technologies (PTEC), served as an early VP at AOL, was a VC at Softbank Ventures, created his own VC firm Masthead, and then became a partner at Avalon Ventures. Rich was a judge for the MIT 100k Business Plan Competition. Rich stays very active and connected to the entrepreneurial communities in NYC, Boston and San Francisco.

Terry McGuire

Terry McGuire, Co-founder and General Partner of Polaris Partners. Polaris Partners has a portfolio including Adimab, Akamai (IPO), Acceleron (IPO), and Ironwood (IPO). Terry is a founding partner of Polaris Partners. Before starting his own fund, Terry spent seven years at Burr, Egan, Deleage, & Co. His investments are focused on early-stage medical and information technology companies. He was on the Forbes Midas List of the top 100 tech investors several times. He received the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research Award and the Albert Einstein Award for Outstanding Achievements in Life Sciences (awarded by Harvard and the City of Jerusalem). He is chairman emeritus of the National Venture Capital Association and chairman of the Global Venture Capital Congress. He holds an engineering degree from Dartmouth College, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and holds a BS in physics and economics from Hobart College. He is on the board of MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School (HBS), and the Healthcare Initiative Advisory Board (HBS). He also chairs the board of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College