This is a piece I co-authored with Alexandra Sukin and originally posted on the Bessemer blog. We often describe breakout consumer internet businesses as earthquakes that occur out of nowhere, and are so powerful they feel like forces of nature and movements that are bigger than the brands themselves. But what powers the tectonic shifts that create…More
Roadmap Update: Remote Work
I first published my remote work roadmap (below) just three months before the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the U.S. It was inspired by over a year of research that led to my conviction that remote and distributed work was inevitable. Removing geography as a constraint to team building would be transformative. It felt like I…More
Payback’s a gift
My framework for assessing CAC payback Payback is a _________ Each year, we meet hundreds of internet businesses that run the gamut from industry or vertical to product and business model — and just about everything in between. On the surface, these businesses might not have much in common; internally, we’ve converged around one single metric that’s…More
The State of Sound: Audio in 2020 and Beyond
By Gaby Goldberg & Talia Goldberg. Originally published in Bessemer’s Atlas. Audio is experiencing a Cambrian moment, growing faster now than it ever has before. Apple is expected to sell over 100 million AirPods this year, up from 60 million in 2019. Roughly one in four adults owns a smart speaker, with a third of…More
Enabling Entrepreneurship
By Talia Goldberg, Sakib Dadi, Lindsey Li. Originally published in Bessemer’s Atlas. Contrary to popular belief, starting a business has never been harder. Although startup culture sometimes feels more like pop culture in mainstream media, the number of new businesses formed each year is decreasing. Over the past 30 years, new business creation has declined…More
Remote work roadmap
This was originally posted on the Bessemer blog in January 2020. It outlines my remote work thesis and includes excerpts from a presentation I gave to Bessemer’s limited partners in October 2019. At Bessemer, we believe entrepreneurship is borderless and that geography is one of the greatest limitations of innovation and growth. We first came…More
Valuations: What is Happening and does it Matter?
Here is a short presentation that my colleague Jeremy Levine and I put together to highlight valuation trends in various tech sectors. Within the past two years, over 50 new “unicorns” have emerged in the U.S. These unicorns are propped up by venture capitalists and their rapidly expanding funds. While many will evolve into self-sustaining…More
More Money, More Problems
I recently wrote a guest post for the Dorm Room Fund‘s blog about the dangers of raising too much money early on. I think this topic is one of the most important for young startups raising seed / series A capital. You can see the post on the DRF blog, but I have also posted…More
Scandals in a Male Dominated Silicon Valley
The recent Ellen Pao–Kleiner Perkins scandal has brought much needed attention to the gender gap in technology and venture capital. The media attention and debate surrounding the lawsuit has opened up a dialogue that often remains hidden and overlooked, particularly in this field. But the gender unbalance is unmistakable. A recent report reveals that women make up a…More
How Startups Disrupt Industries
Below is a great quote from Bryce Roberts’ blog that highlights one of the reasons I love startups — their innovative way of envisioning a new reality. “Startups don’t compete with airlines by purchasing a bunch of planes, hiring a bunch of pilots and locking up a bunch of terminals at airports. Startups compete with…More
Talia Goldberg 