When I recently met up with Andreessen Horowitz’s partner John O’Farrell, I noticed something interesting on his office wall: a big picture of Che Guevara.

At first, it seemed a bit disconcerting. After all, Che was a fervent supporter of Marxism. But then again, he was someone who also liked to make huge changes.

And yes, that’s what Andreessen Horowitz is all about. The VC firm is unlike any other.

So when talking to John, we spent a lot of time on the topic of revolution — and how his portfolio companies are making a big difference.

One we talked about was ItsOn, which is striving to radically change the whole concept of how people pay and use their mobile plan. It’s actually very Che-ian; that is, the mission is to unseat a certain kind of imperialism. Hey, who doesn’t feel violated by their mobile carrier?

“With ItsOn,” said John, “a user has complete customization of a mobile plan. A user can specify how long he or she will use a certain app, like Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) or Pandora (NYSE:P). This means there will no longer be a one-size-fits-all billing approach. You can be as granular as you like. There’s nothing like it on the market.”

But John is also interested in another emerging revolution: the explosive growth in data. To help things out, he has led an investment in GoodData, a top cloud operator.

“GoodData realized that many software vendors had the dashboard creation process as a low priority,” said John. “But customers still need them. So with GoodData, you can create dashboards for many top apps like Marketo, Google Spreadsheets and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM).”

But the company has moved beyond this and now provides something called bashes. These are business mashups. For example, you can create links between Marketo, Google Spreadsheets and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) to see how customers flow through the funnel.

But data is not just about corporations. The opportunity also extends well into the consumer space.

“People are accumulating large amounts of data across sites like Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox and Pinterest,” said John. “But the data is in silos because sites do not always play well together. Just look at Twitter cutting off Instagram, for example.”

This is where IFTTT comes in. The company makes it much easier to combine different web services, without having to be a coder. It’s all done by using publicly available APIs.

“I see big growth for the company because of the emergence of the ‘Internet of things,” said John. “This is when we will have connections with cars, sound systems and even refrigerators. Consumers will expect all these things to talk to each other.”

Yes, it’s kind of a utopian world after all — and so expect lots of radical changes ahead. Oh, and it’s something Che somehow would have liked very much.

For just about any business, data has become a lifeblood. So it should be no surprise that the backup industry is massive, as seen with the substantial revenues from Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC).

Yet there are some problems. Perhaps one of the most notable is the complexity.

But this has become a nice opportunity for Quorum. Keep in mind that its system uses a “one-click backup.”

Yea, not too tough.

As a sign of Quorum’s success, the company  recently snagged $11 million in venture funding, led by Toba Capital. The firm was created by Vinny Smith, who was the CEO of Quest Software. Last year, he sold the company to Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) for a cool $2.4 billion.

“When pitching our deal,” said Larry Lang, who is the CEO of Quorum, “we wanted more than just money. Of course, Vinny and his team brought tremendous operational experience. And we have already benefited from it.”

It’s true that the funding environment is a bit tighter now. Admittedly, the backup business is also kind of prosaic.

But Quorum had some advantages that caught investor interest. First of all, the company has been growing at a rapid pace.

Then again, Quorum has always been focused on building the right technologies for its customers, not just rolling out what’s fashionable. Consider that Quorum’s software is essentially a hybrid of traditional appliance hardware and the cloud. All in all, it’s the right approach for optimal backups.

Because of this customer-centric approach, Quorum had lots of standout customer references. These turned out to be crucial in the funding round.

According to Larry: “We have customers that say that our software saved their jobs.”

No doubt, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Angel financing has been critical for most great companies, such as Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) or Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). It’s amazing that small amounts, like $50,000 to $100,000, can help to create empires.

So what are some ways to improve the odds of getting the interest of angels?

Well, I recently interviewed Alex Lowe, who just raised $400,000 in angel funding. His company, iSnap, develops photo-sharing kiosks, which leverage social media.

And yes, he has some important lessons for entrepreneurs:

1. Plan to be patient. Angels are people, not investment firms, so there is a lot competing for their attention and their checkbooks. Timing has to be right for both the company and the angel if you want to get a check. Kids get accepted to expensive colleges, families decide they want to travel, or the stock market goes down. There are lots of reasons why “no” is really “not right now” with angels. We were fortunate enough to start raising angel money early before we needed it, because there were many angels that said “Yes” but couldn’t write a check for several months just because of timing of life’s events.

2. Build some history in your community. People invest more in teams during the angel phase than any other phase in the fundraising process. So if you have had a chance to build a reputation in the community to show your skills, determination and unique world view, you’ll be ahead of the game. And if you can put together a team that has a proven track record of success, even better. The angels aren’t just investing in you, they’re also investing in your team’s ability to execute your vision. I was fortunate to have a history in the Sacramento startup community to show that I wasn’t just a guy with an idea. I was a guy who loved startups, who could manufacture success and was in it for the long haul. It goes a long way to showing the angels there is a reduced risk by investing in you and your team.

3. Leverage angels’ expertise and build rapport. Angels can not only provide financial capital but also great intellectual capital to help establish or grow your business. Plus, everyone likes to be asked for advice. Angels invest in startups because they enjoy the journey – there are far less risky ways to invest money. Nurture the relationship and include your angels in the process of building the business, even before they have invested. As an entrepreneur with an engineering background, I have certain biases and strengths. By engaging with the local angels as informal advisors it allowed me to strengthen my weak areas, have sounding boards and build rapport ahead of raising the angel round. By engaging angels as part of the company building process they’ll have a sense of ownership and will also have a chance to see how you operate. Both of which will make writing checks easier.

When it comes to IT performance management, Lew Cirne is a pioneer. He founded Wily Technology in 1998 and then sold the company in 2006 to CA for a cool $375 million.

But after the deal, he wondered: “What would I do differently to make a company go the distance like Salesforce or VMware?”

The answer: New Relic.

The company leverages the cloud to take IT performance management to the next level — and to make life very tough for incumbents like BMC, IBM and yes, CA.

In fact, New Relic just announced an $80 million round of financing. Some of the investors include Insight Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Benchmark Capital and Trinity Ventures.

“I think of traditional software like the old satellite phones of the 1980s,” said Lew. “They were expensive and clunky and only for uber-wealthy companies.”

New Relic, on the other hand, is made to be immediately useful and available for companies of any size.  There’s no need for manuals or expensive consultants.

“We take a product-first approach,” said Lew. “We obsess over the user experience. We want our customers to fall in love with our product.”

And many have. During the latest quarter, New Relic added over 1,000 paying customers.

As for the market opportunity, it is about $15 billion per year. But this may understate the true size. After all, New Relic has a potentially broad reach.  As Lew said wryly:  ”Just look at how the market exploded when the world went beyond satellite phones.”

Bessemer’s Bob Goodman has gotten off to a great start for the New Year. Today Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) announced the $475 million purchase of one of his portfolio companies, Intucell. Keep in mind that he struck a Series A investment of $6 million back in early 2011.

It was the only investment in the company. Oh, and Bessemer was the only investor in the deal.

Interestingly enough, the opportunity could have easily slipped through the cracks. “At Bessemer, we take a global approach,” said Bob. “We invest out of a single fund and get input from our partners around the world.”

As for Intucell, it got its start in Israel. A Bessemer partner in the country, Adam Fisher, saw the deal but was not sure if it was a good one. So he showed it to Bob, who is a wireless expert.

“The company had an amazing technology,” he said, “which helped solve big problems for mobile carriers, such as with the data crunch and network congestion.”

Bob had already been looking at the space and saw that there was severe underinvestment. “Back in the 1990s, companies were started with the goal to sell to the carriers and major equipment operators,” he said. “But this went away after the bust.”

Yet with the surge in smartphones and tablets, the market has suddenly become ripe for innovation again.

And Bob thought a key prospect for Intucell was AT&T (NYSE:T), especially in the San Francisco area (yes, drop calls were a huge problem).  “Within a couple days,” he said, “we already agreed to do a trial with AT&T. The results were immediate.”

Bob then structured a contract that resulted in an influx of cash. “By generating revenue early-on,” he said, “we had no dilution.”

All in all, the Intucell deal showed how a VC can provide lots of strategic value. Bob had extensive experience working with carriers and knew who to call as well as how to manange the complex process. Without this, it’s a good chance that Intucell’s growth ramp would have been much less stellar.

When it comes to raising big money, Roman Stanek is a pro. During his 20-year career, he has raised about $100 million. As for his latest startup, GoodData (a top player in the fast-growing Big Data market), he has completed financings of roughly $53 million from tier-one VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners, Next World Capital, Tenaya Capital and Windcrest Partners.

So what’s his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? Well, let’s see what he has to say:

Q. After raising almost $100 million, are there any lessons for entrepreneurs that stand out?

A. Yes, I do have three key lessons I can share:

1. A startup is not the same thing as a small company. It’s an entirely different organization, with its own dynamics, rules and functions. Everyone is making things up as they go along, often with no set procedures to fall back on. Taking the initiative — both as an individual and within the team concept — is critical to transform a problem into a solution. After all, in a startup you’re dealing with an unknown product, unknown market, and an unknown customer.

2. A startup is one giant mood swing. There are no emotional buffers in a startup, which means that you and everyone around you constantly has to react to good news and bad news. Everything gets amplified.  The result: A negative email can send you into a quick tailspin, while a secured deal can put you on top of the world a second later. You have to have the confidence in the big picture or risk losing talent. And in a startup, losing an employee could be a matter of survival.

3. This might sound like a cliché, but cash is more than king. Cash is blood. Every single dollar matters — so spend your money wisely.

Q. What was the biggest challenge to raising capital? Any surprises?

A. After going through this process three times, I can say there are always surprises when you are attempting to raise money because every venture effort is unique, with changing economies, markets and other factors that influence VC behavior. That said, for the entrepreneur it all comes down to confidence: Rock solid confidence in your vision to the point of underestimating the risks that are involved in starting a company from scratch. It’s the confidence to get everyone around you to believe in your vision and follow where you lead. And it’s the confidence to sell your future to your investors and your customers.

Q. What are your views on the venture funding environment for ‘Big Data’ next year and beyond?

A. For the most part, venture capital has focused on funding core infrastructure — essentially the plumbing that enables customers to collect, collate and store massive amounts of data. I believe that next year and beyond investors will turn their attention to data and app platforms, which will finally convert all that data into something useful that can be analyzed, understood and acted on.

Google Ventures (GV) is not a typical venture capital firm. It has a staff of over 50 and they provide hands-on assistance to their portfolio companies — such as with product positioning, user interface (UI) design and scaling. Think of GV as a startup factory.

I recently had a chance to talk to one of the firm’s partners, Karim Faris, whose focus is primarily on enterprise deals. Yes, the space has been red hot as seen with IPOs like ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) and Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK).

Of course, Karim provided some great insights for entrepreneurs looking for backing.

First of all, he has an interest in several major categories, such as security. “There is no shortage of bad guys in the online world,” he said. “So the opportunity for security is large. But there is no silver bullet. No solution is perfect.”

Karim also gets excited when he sees hybrid solutions, which combine traditional technologies — such as appliances — with newer approaches like the cloud. Let’s face it, many enterprises will not suddenly adopt new-fangled technologies. Instead, they are looking for bridges.

This is why Karim invested in Egnyte. The company has created a compelling hybrid cloud storage solution, which has attracted customers like IKEA.

Karim also likes companies that are focused on mass analysis. “We are looking at applications that help clean data and allow for insights through visualizations,” he said. “The Big Data market is still in the early stages.”

In terms of advice for pitching a deal, Karim says that a company needs to think seriously about its go-to-market strategy. Will the company get customers with direct sales? Or will there be some type of channel approach?

He also says that the UI is critical. “This usually gets done last,” said Karim. “But it should be a key part of the product development from the start. And it’s also something that should not be outsourced.”

After EMC (NYSE:EMC) bought Greenplum in 2010, Ben Werther became the head of products for the division. “I got a unique perspective on the data needs of customers,” he said.

And it was also a great business opportunity as he went on to found Platfora. In fact, today the company announced a $20 million Series B round, with investors like Battery Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Platfora’s goal is to disrupt the traditional data warehousing and business intelligence (BI) markets, which include entrenched players like Teradata (NYSE:TDC) and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL). At the core of the strategy is a focus on Hadoop.  It’s a technology that helps to scale huge amounts of data.

Yes, it’s part of the Big Data revolution.

But there’s been a problem:   Hadoop is not easy to work with. Keep in mind that it’s been mostly the domain of data scientists at companies like Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB).

But with Platfora, it’s now possible for any company to get tangible business value from Big Data. This is through common sense queries and helpful visualizations.

Pulling this off has taken about a year and intense engineering. “I’ve never seen better execution from a team,” said Scott Weiss, who is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

No doubt, Platfora is still in the early phases, with ten beta customers and 70+ waiting. “We knew Platfora would be well-received in the market, but the volume of interest thus far has been beyond our expectations,” Ben said. “The funding will allow us to ramp our engineering and build out our US-wide field organization ahead of general availability for the product in Q1 2013. The $30+ billion business analytics market is undergoing a rapid transformation towards Hadoop-based technologies, and Platfora is only going to accelerate that beyond the early adopters.”

The IPO market is critical to the U.S. economy: It’s both a way for companies to raise huge amounts of money and a way for early-stage investors to get outsized returns for taking big risks.

Unfortunately, things have been pretty tough lately, especially for Internet and social deals. Just look at the plunges in valuation for companies like Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) and Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA).

So in light of this, are we starting to see a negative impact on web start-up funding? Well, according to a piece in The Wall Street Journal, it looks like the answer is yes.

Angel investors and venture capitalists (VCs) are apparently starting to focus much more on business models and the sustainability of new ventures. And because of this, the general trend is towards lower valuation as well as longer funding cycles.

Really, though, this is good news. Let’s face it: The IPO market is about creating true economic value, not just allowing for the availability of cool technologies.

In fact, this is why other tech sectors have fared much better, such as cloud computing and security technologies. Companies like ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW), Palo Alto Networks (NYSE:PANW) and Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) have pulled off highly successful IPOs. Plus, these companies are growing at torrid rates and also have solid revenue streams.

As a result, capital will start to flow into these sectors and away from others like social and Internet categories — precisely why the capitalist system is so effective.

And, of course, so brutal for young entrepreneurs — especially those who think that bubbles can somehow last forever.

On Thursday, Convergent.io announced a $10 million Series A round with Andreessen Horowitz. The company plans to upend the storage market by leveraging next-generation software technologies.

It’s certainly ambitious, but Convergent.io’s team has a proven track record. The founders — Andrew Warfield, Keir Fraser and Ramana Jonnala — were the masterminds behind XenSource, which took a direct shot at VMware’s (VMW) virtualization franchise. In 2007, Citrix (CTXS) bought the company for a cool $500 million.

However, Convergent.io has no plans to sell out. After all, it looks like the software-defined datacenter is the next wave in enterprise infrastructure that will be key for cloud computing.

“The missing piece of the puzzle that represents the most complex, expensive and entrenched part of the datacenter is still storage,” Jonnala said.

Jonnala’s experience at XenSource will come in handy.

“We learned some important lessons,” he said. “The most important is to have a world-class team. It is also important to get the product out at the right time and get feedback from customers early. This makes it easier to make course corrections.”

Andreessen Horowitz also will be vital — and not just for the $10 million. One of the firm’s partners, Peter Levine, has joined the board of Convergent.io. Besides being a former executive at Veritas, he also was — to bring it all together — the CEO of XenSource.

“Andreessen Horowitz has staked significant investments behind Marc Andreesen’s oft-quoted ‘Software is eating the World’ mantra, with Nicira being the most recent success,” Jonnala said. “We felt they truly saw the full vision of how enterprise infrastructure will be transformed over the next decade at every level by software-defined approaches.”