My partner Greg Bettinelli (worth following on Twitter) was recently named by The LA Business Journal as the “Top deal maker in Los Angeles in Venture Capital.” Numero uno. I was nowhere to be found. And that’s a true reflection of just how successful and prolific Greg has been in LA.

In a world that is hyper competitive – even amongst VCs – I can honestly say that not only is the media recognition accurate but it is amongst the proudest days I’ve had in developing Upfront Ventures and our future. Earnestly. No false praise (which anybody I work with can tell you I don’t do). In the end, if you’re not developing a deep bench of talented professionals who keep you on your toes, you’re bound to be disrupted. And Greg has had the most influence on Upfront Ventures’ strategy since he joined.

I joined Upfront Ventures in 2007 and took over as co-Managing Partner in 2011 along with the founder, Yves Sisteron. I asked for the responsibility of setting out the firm’s future strategy and our daily operating tasks. I laid out the following goals:

Hire investment partners with operating experience combined with investment experience and deeply committed to LA Tech, but with strong relationships in SF, NYC and beyond.
Create diversity of thought, experience and backgrounds in our senior ranks
Build out our junior staff including pulling through some younger professionals into the investment ranks
Invest more heavily in platform services
Rebrand with a name that would authentically lay out our values.

$30 million. That’s how much Invoca raised and we’re announcing it today. It is an heroic accomplishment in a brutal fund-raising market in which only market leaders can bring in that sort of money. But the story started more than 6 months ago. And the narrative may tell you something about your own journey one day.

We started planning our fund raising as much as 14 months ago. Invoca had grown steadily and consistently since 2009 and by 2015 SaaS companies with scale had become hot – trading at a median of 7.3x forward sales with some as high as 12x sales. Many had started IPO’ing and we started to think about our future.

Investors sat with the founder & CEO, Jason Spievak, and asked him what he wanted to do about the future.

Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. We also know that even though many of us who are experienced in startup successes & failures look at businesses and say, “That will never work” (as many people said about Uber) or “You can’t make any money in that business” (as many said about WhatsApp or Dropbox) and of course some entrepreneurs pull off extraordinary things we never thought possible.

Trying outrageous new things or even trying mundane things but in new ways but with extreme quality & innovation is what fuels the tech startup industry.

Yet I can’t help thinking there are many predictable failures that come from a lack of basic planning. It turns out that to build a successful company you ultimately need this strange thing called “revenue” that people don’t just hand you: You need to earn it. And there’s this other thing called “gross margin,” which shows the quality of your revenue.

Yesterday I wrote a primer on how to use Snapchat for my peer group of “over 30” people who don’t yet “get” Snapchat. Today I want to talk briefly about why I believe Snapchat is an important media company.

If you still don’t get Snapchat please read the primer or follow me on Snapchat for a week or two because how I create “stories” on Snapchat is more of a use case for modern media than perhaps some teens use the product so it may resonate more with you what the future could bring.

For most who don’t yet use Snapchat frequently I know the economic case feels like a stretch of the imagination because you’re caught up in the original Snapchat and I’m trying to offer a perspective about where the puck may be going. It’s up to Team Snapchat to live up to its financial expectations but I believe it certainly has the potential. I’ve heard the new media doubters before as nobody thought Google, Facebook or Twitter would ever make money.

As the human ear ages it loses its ability to hear high-pitched sound frequencies (above 15-16 kHz) through a condition known as presbycusis that starts at 18 years old. There’s an old parlor trick where a sound is played at a higher frequency than adults can hear while kids are left smiling and laughing at us because for once it’s US who are out of the loop.

Thus begins Snapchat and why you don’t get it. That’s the point. But that’s going to change so the sooner you get get over the fact that it’s not a “sexting app” the better. Let me just put this more clearly for you up front – the vast majority of the Internet is used for porn so every product has this use but you probably just don’t know about it: YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook, FaceTime, Skype and of course be very careful on Google Search without “safe mode” on.

So get over it. Snapchat will be used for both like the Internet (and TV) are. I just need to break you of the idea that Snapchat is for one thing – it is not.

Now. Let me first address VCs or anybody else who is likely above the age where they “get” Snapchat but whose customers are likely in the age demo who use it religiously.