About Me — DC Palter
Everything you don’t need to know about me
Hi there! Thank you for reading my articles.
I write primarily about startups and venture capital with advice for startup founders, though sometimes when I’m feeling inspired, I throw in a bonus article.
After building and exiting two companies of my own, I’ve been an angel investor for over a decade and a partner at a sustainability venture fund. My aim is to provide founders with the knowledge to pitch their startups to investors.
To see the blow-by-blow of my college degrees and somewhat random career, please connect with me on LinkedIn.
Although I was originally a research engineer and later a marketing specialist and startup founder, my love is literature. My wife often accuses me of loving books more than her, which is completely untrue but when I’m lost in a good novel, I have trouble refuting her or even hearing what she says.
Besides reading, I also write mystery novels about Silicon Valley. My first novel, To Kill a Unicorn, was recently release by Pandamoon Publishing. It’s the story of a startup willing to go to any length to become a unicorn, and the hacker looking for his missing friend who after discovering their secrets, has to stop them. Imagine the movie Chinatown about technology instead of water.
Though I grew up in Maryland, I lived in Kobe and Tokyo for many years and think in a jumbled mixture of Japanese and English. My minor claim to fame is as the author of Colloquial Kansai Japanese, the Tuttle guidebook to the local Kansai dialect (Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe/Nara region).
Combining my love of chemistry and Japanese culture, I’ve become a sake connoisseur and travel whenever I can to visit sake breweries. If you’ve never had good sake (not the warmed-over crap at the sushi restaurant), try a bottle of Dassai 39. Then let’s talk about all the other wonderful bottles out there.
Now I live in Los Angeles with my wife, Satsuki, a Grand Master of Ohara-style ikebana and a teacher of Urasenke tea ceremony. Of all the things I do, my most important job is carrying water for her.
If you enjoy my articles, follow me with the link somewhere on this page and please consider subscribing to Medium. It’s about the cost of a cup of coffee, and if you use this referral link, I get paid half so I can buy my own coffee to fuel writing more articles. https://dcpalter.medium.com/membership.
