Here are the three blogs I read the most now

As someone that has been blogging for almost ten years (yes, October of this year will be the 10th anniversary of this blog) I tend to be pretty blog-focused when it comes to reading. It’s how I’m programmed and I guess now I’m old so reprogramming me is hard. Okay, not that hard since I now post on Snapchat more than I do Facebook, but it’s fair to say that both reading and writing in blog format has been my method of choice for learning from other people.

Some people learn from You Tube videos, others binge watch the History Channel or try to attend as many talks at conferences as they can, for me blogs have been my go-to and that hasn’t changed in ten years so it’s probably not going to change anytime soon. I think blogs can be particularly valuable when you’re taking a new path in life, your career, etc. and want to learn from someone that has been in your shoes.

One question I get a lot from other founders and blog readers is, “what blogs do you read?” So here’s the answer – right now I’d say my three favorite blogs are (in no particular order):

Tomasz Tunguz – it’s safe to say that Tomasz is one of the most well-known and well-respected VCs out there. I’ve been reading his blog for years now and he always has really insightful posts often backed-up by solid data. Tomasz tends to write about SaaS startups quite a bit so as the co-founder of a SaaS startup just about all his posts are incredibly relevant to me. So why listen to Tomasz? He’s a VC at Redpoint Ventures which is one of the most badass firms in Silicon Valley with close to $4B under management, 468 investments, 17 IPOs and 88 companies that have been acquired. Boom, those stats blow my mind every time.

Both Sides of the Table – written by Mark Suster from Upfront Ventures, this might just be the blog I’ve been reading the longest since I took the plunge almost five years ago, left everything I knew behind and took the startup road. What I really like about Mark’s blog is that he tell it like it is, he isn’t afraid to speak his mind and he has a ton of experience both as a founder and venture capitalist which means that yes, he has sat on both sides of the table. Mark sold his first startup to Salesforce and it’s actually one of the best acquisition stories I’ve heard because everyone in the company made very good money, and some of the team is still at Salesforce not because they have to, but because they love what they’re doing. I have a ton of respect for VCs that have been founders themselves and a founder with a couple solid exits under their belt is even better.

Alex Iskold – Alex is the MD of Techstars NYC and we’ve been lucky enough to know him since the early days of Bold Metrics. Alex’s blog has some of the most solid articles about fundraising out there, period, seriously I send his articles around to founders probably weekly. Alex sees a ton of companies both applying to Techstars, going through Techstars, and that he’s invested in himself as an Angel. What I really like about Alex’s blog is that he isn’t biased by what everyone else says you should do, he uses his own insights and experience to share advice that I find you won’t read anywhere else. One great example is a post he wrote about why it’s a bad idea to send pitch decks to investors before the first meeting, you can read it here.