founders, VC's, mentors and startup experts.
I had discussions with 2 entrepreneurs who have received angel investor interest thanks to Angel List. They are doing well, getting traction and starting to get interest from potential seed stage investors. The question they had for me was to learn the art of the close. Much as I dislike the word closing a deal ...
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Via: Be a Force of Good
CEO in Residence, Microsoft Accelerator @msftaccelerator |
Imagine you were asked to invest in ten startups. Given numerical ratings on the Team, Product, Market and Traction but knowing nothing about the specifics of the team, the exact product or the domain they play in, can you pick those that actually received a term sheet? Take this quiz and see how you do. Do not read ahead before you do the quiz. ...
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Via: Iterative Path
Practicing Effective Pricing |
Q: In our startup we have 4 founders, two of whom are not full time. We've all put in a good sum of cash thus far. The two founders with the least equity happen to be the two tech founders. Some of us feel that we made a mistake when allocating shares in the beginning ...
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Via: Ask The VC
I'm a managing director at Foundry Group. I live in Boulder, |
A question I often get asked by entrepreneurs is what is Flybridge's investment philosophy - do we make our investment decisions based on people or on themes? The glib answer is both, but as I've thought more about this question... ...
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Via: Seeing Both Sides
Former entrepreneur turned VC at Flybridge Capital, author o |
We all wish we could spend $50,000 to hire an awesome design agency for every new idea we have. But for early stage startups - especially bootstrappers - that isn't always a sound investment. True, a high quality, custom-built brand and website is going to make all the difference someday - and it's great that you're into design, man (should be read in hippy voice) - but today you want to focus on ...
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Via: COPY HACKERS
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Hey, there. Four years ago this December, my husband and I launched our first software as a service, Freckle Time Tracking. Since then, it's grossed nearly $700,000, and we've grown, shrunk, hired, fired, stagnated and worked our tails off. To celebrate, I'm writing a series of blog posts about what we've learned. ...
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Via: UnicornFree
I put the Amy in anomaly. Bootstrapper, product crusader, Ru |
There has been a lot of discussion lately about the markets for startup financing. Many of the discussions use words like "valuations" "bubble" "crunch" etc. Words like that generally mean the writer is discussing the world through the lens of finance. This is a useful lens, but I'd like to suggest there is another lens that is also useful: the product lens. ...
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Via: chris dixon's blog
Founder & investor |
I got this question on a panel last week, and coincidentally, I had a couple folks on Twitter tweet out the same question. Generically speaking, the question is "how do I get in touch with a potential investor about my company?" ...
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Via: Robgo.org
Cofounder of NextView Ventures. Founding advisor at Boundle |
Nearly every entrepreneur has heard the refrain, "Get back to me when you have some traction," while seeking funding. From an unsophisticated investor ...
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Via: Infochachkie
You can check out my startup advice blog at: http://www.info |
People who tell you that VCs won't look at a company with an even equity split are being silly. That has never once, in my experience, been even a slight hiccup, let alone a dispositive factor in a seed investment.→ ...
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Via: Gust Blog
Venture capitalist, entrepreneur, angel investor |
One question I really like to ask idea stage entrepreneurs is how they've split up their equity. Now, for a startup with traction, investors, etc that question can be like asking how much money someone makes, so take it lightly. For two entrepreneurs that are just getting started on their idea, it's usually no big deal. Almost always the answer to that question is that the equity has been split ev ...
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Via: David Cummings
10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family, |
Equity incentives are a major form of compensation for most emerging growth and technology companies. Without them, most start-ups cannot afford critical labor, let alone a board of directors or advisors. ...
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Via: The Startup Garage
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Let's talk about money, baby! Whether it's funding or acquihires, angels or convertible notes, debt or income, money is the topic we all looooove to talk about (and pretend not to care about). Lemme be straight with you: I love me some money. ...
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Via: UnicornFree
I put the Amy in anomaly. Bootstrapper, product crusader, Ru |
When convertible debt first started being introduced as a "faster, cheaper way to get startups funded" they didn't have pricing built into them. A standard entrepreneur retort I heard back then (2008-09) was "I don't know what my company is worth now. By doing a convertible note we can delay the discussion until we figure out how big this is going to be." ...
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2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesfo |
Today's savvier entrepreneurs, with more flexibility in financing (Kickstarter anyone?), are no longer assuming investors' value-add (sans money) - but are actively verifying that a value-add exists and making sure that they get investors who add considerable non-monetary value or pressing investors who don't, to provide better financing terms. And in some cases, intentionally pursuing "dumb money ...
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Via: Vlaskovits
CMO at @GetDrumbi. Wrote The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustD |
0.5-2% seems to be normal, trending toward the high end if you're pre-funding and the low end if you've already raised a decent round. Those numbers get completely thrown out when the adviser is your distribution channel. ...
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Via: The Startup Toolkit
Founder at http://dex.io (get more speaking gigs). I talk & |
You'd think that given the sheer volume of material written about how to pitch your company to investors that we'd be in the midst of some sort of golden age for the startup pitch. Clear concise value propositions, crisp tales of product market fit (or failed attempts at discovery), direct asks for how much is being raised and what's hoped to be validated. ...
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Via: Bryce DOT VC
VC, Dad |
When my mentor asked me for specific quotes from "potential customers" to demonstrate demand in an investor presentation the next day, I was up S* ...
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Co-founder at MovingWorlds. Social Entrepreneur Empowering S |
I sat back and analyzed my startups today and compared my funded startups with my bootstrapped startups. It's logical to assume that my funded startups did better because we essentially had a huge influx of cash to invest into people, marketing, and product; however, my bootstrapped startups have done remarkably better time and time again. ...
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Founder of @TourWoo, the easiest way to book a tour online. |
If you are good enough to be that first employee, you are a very small step away from being a co-founder. You're an essential part of the mix, and that will substantially alter the chances of this start-up succeeding or failing, you are sharing in the risk and you should be compensated accordingly. ...
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Via: jacquesmattheij.com
techie, coder, troubleshooter (maker ;) ), outspoken, always |
It's never been easier to raise seed funding, and there's warnings that we're in the midst of a "seed stage bubble." Whether you think it's a bubble or a boom things are good- you have to ask, how long will the party go on? ...
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Via: Andrew Chen Blog
Bay Area entrepreneur, blogger, formerly in online ads and v |
In our lean World characterized by 12 week accelerator programs and small seed rounds I worry that today's founders don't have enough time or money to screw up the way founders did in the past. ...
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Via: Mark MacLeod
Seed investor for SaaS, e-commerce and other awesome startup |
Entrepreneurs and investors have been enamored with consumer internet startups for the last few years. But there are signs this is ending. Some observations: - Thousands of early-stage consumer web/mobile companies were started and funded in last 24 months. ...
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Via: chris dixon's blog
Founder & investor |
I've been on both sides of this event, and believe me, it is not fun. But it is, unfortunately, a virtually inextricable part of the entrepreneurial life, and what matters most is how you deal with it. I am one of the more upbeat, positive-thinking people on the planet, but when my first venture-backed company went into Chapter 11 it was perhaps the most traumatic day of my life. I felt that I ha ...
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Via: Gust Blog
Venture capitalist, entrepreneur, angel investor |
Almost all of the seed stage founders I work with pay themselves a very meager salary post seed round. It's rarely a discussion - there are limited resources, a lot of pressure to hit meaningful milestones, and the founders usually just elect to pay themselves a mid-5-digit salary that is enough to survive. ...
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Via: Robgo.org
Cofounder of NextView Ventures. Founding advisor at Boundle |
I'm a huge fan of bootstrapped businesses. Those who bootstrap a business enjoy a unique satisfaction knowing they created value from nothing with very-little-to-no outside financial support. I have started several businesses, successfully exiting two, and along the way I have found a few things to be consistent when starting a business, especially when bootstrapping. ...
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Via: Silicon Prairie News
Business builder and sometimes fixer. Enjoy the ride. http: |
In theory, control of a company rests with the ownership split between the founder and the investors and how the Board of the Company is set up. If the founder/entrepreneur owns more than 50% of the company and controls more than half of the board seats, then he or she has "control" of the Company. But in reality I have found things are very different than that. And it all comes down to two things ...
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Via: AVC
I am a VC |
The decision to give an entrepreneur cold hard cash is all about trust. I trust you to take my $1 and make it $5 or $10. One important datapoint in forming my trust thesis as an investor is how organized you and your company are. No matter what your company size, your key documents should be organized and readily available. And you should know what's in them. ...
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Via: Mark MacLeod
Seed investor for SaaS, e-commerce and other awesome startup |
If the investor thinks it is, then it is. If not, no.While that may sound simplistic, it's actually accurate. It is important to look at questions like this holistically. Investors are putting their money behind an entrepreneur and his/her particular vision, team, and operating skills. If the entrepreneur believes that having office jellyfish is a Good Thing for company morale and a work environme ...
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Via: Gust Blog
Venture capitalist, entrepreneur, angel investor |
The interesting step to figure out, is how you setup the co-founding group both in terms of number of co-founders, titles and equity allocations. It's all too common for startups to blow up before they've left the launchpad due to disagreements and poor arrangements among the initial team. Here are some "best practices" if they can be called such in my opinion related to the founding team: ...
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Via: Nat Turner
Co-founder of Flatiron Health. Previously Co-Founder/CEO of |
Most of us know not to complain about the previous employer during a job interview. Fair or not, it just doesn't work, right? The new job never want to hire somebody with that kind of chip on a shoulder. ...
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Via: Gust Blog
Founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software; entrepreneur, bu |
Devon Wijesignhe offers up that once you are profitable and have at least $10 million in revenue you aren't a startup: I agree with him that those criteria could be part of what makes a company no longer a startup but revenue and profitability alone don't feel right. In fact, I wanted to offer more specific ideas of when a startup is less like a startup and more like a regular business. ...
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Via: David Cummings
10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family, |
There are some overlaps. Challenges Status Quo Curious Self Motivated Visionary Entertains the Fantastic ...
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Via: Dorai's Learn Log
Favorite topics - Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurshi |
On the surface it might not seem that big of a deal, raising money at a lower valuation than the previous round. In reality, most investments have anti-dilution provisions such that if another round of capital is raised at a lower valuation, then the previous investor gets their original number of shares increased to equal out to the previous investment amount but at the new, lower per share price ...
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Via: David Cummings
10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family, |
Business men believed that you could do anything by "financing" it. If it did not go through on the first financing then the idea was to "refinance." The process of "refinancing" was simply the game of sending good money after bad. In the majority of cases the need of refinancing arises from bad management, and the effect of refinancing is simply to pay the poor managers to keep up their bad manag ...
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Via: UnicornFree
I put the Amy in anomaly. Bootstrapper, product crusader, Ru |
Warren Buffet once said: Buy into a business that's doing so well an idiot could run it, because sooner or later, one will. This is a useful way to understand the meaning of "equity value". ...
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Via: chris dixon's blog
Founder & investor |
Paul Graham is the genius behind Y Combinator, one of the first startup incubators and the birthplace of immediately recognizable companies such as Reddit, Scribd, Disqus, Dropbox, Posterous, and many, many more. So if he gets worried, people listen. Right … ...
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Via: Venture Beat
I tweet about the web, social media, tech, and startups. Wr |
The following is a guest post written by Joe Faris, CPA is founder of Accountalent Management Corp (www.accountalent.com). Joe can be reached at jfaris @ accountalent . com or Twitter at@accountalent. In our work at venture-backed startups, we are amazed at how hard new employees will negotiate pay, benefits, workspace, duties, titles, etc. and just totally accept their equity compensation. So ...
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Via: Bostinnovation
Executive Director @GreenhornBoston. Comedian/ Manager. Inte |
These seven factors are leading to better and more sustainable opportunities in venture capital than have been present at any time in our investment histories. Given these seven factors - it's hard to look in the rear view mirror and imagine you can see the future. ...
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2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesfo |
Financial acumen should surely be a given for venture capitalists, although writing this sentence feels peculiar when tech venture is today one of the worst performing asset classes in Europe. Europe's venture capital firms are being spurned by their limited partners, and most are unable to raise new funds. Many European firms have disappeared from the market, or are running as ghosts of their for ...
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Via: Urban Horizon
Digital Entrepreneur with an interest in writing & film. Fou |
I told him, "Trust me. Every great entrepreneur has been turned down dozens of times. Laugh it off! Wear it like a badge of honor! Hell, most entrepreneurs who were funded by VCs were probably told 'no' by that exact same VC one time before! ...
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2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesfo |
The hardware ecosystem is flourishing. But hardware is hard, and conventional wisdom is that VCs don't like to invest in it. So how do you fund your hardware startup? ...
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Via: noupside
Associate @ OATV, a dancer, and I like to make things. I sp |
Pivots aren't new. Admitting we do them is. I've been involved in loads of version 1 product concept/development/launch exercises I've yet to see one where the offering didn't significantly change after initial customer feedback. At what point in the product life-cycle these "pivots" occur however is shifting earlier and earlier as most self-respecting entrepreneurs... ...
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Via: Rocket Watcher
Co-founder of RocketScope http://rocketscope.com a marketing |
Clever landing page tests and interviews can tell you whether an idea is bad, but not whether it will work. There's still a big leap from "problem exists" to a product that delights while fitting into someones life and being able to attract new users.It's simply too expensive to outsource your way through the initial uncertainty. Each additional product tweaks are too painful. It's a slow bleed. ...
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Via: The Startup Toolkit
Founder at http://dex.io (get more speaking gigs). I talk & |
I have a startup with thirty paying customers. We've been bootstrapping up to this point.I think there's a big opportunity to raise money, but also I could continue as I have been. I don't know way to go. I already know the pros and cons of the decision, so don't lecture me about that. I just don't know how to pick!This is one of those few dilemmas where there's no wrong answer. ...
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Via: A Smart Bear
Keyword, buzzword, half-truth, adjective, hey look at me! |
Every investor we worked with at Habit treated us unbelievably well. That being said, accepting (and striving for) the funding led us toward building a company we hated and were bad at. Turns out, we just wanted to make a living working on creative projects with our friends. The billion dollar dream was someone else's ...
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Via: The Startup Toolkit
Founder at http://dex.io (get more speaking gigs). I talk & |
Today, we ran across a list of questions asked at a Y Combinator interview. Seems the guys over at Stackblaze even put together an app where you have 15 seconds to answer each question. Think fast, or else you'll see: ...
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Via: ZURB Blog
ZURB is a close-knit team of product designers who help comp |
When I first quit my job to work on Spriter full-time, the original plan was to begin speaking to investors and trying to otherwise sell the beta when there was a few months of self-funding left. I was planning on having to return to some type of full time work, but armed with the progress I'd made I could continue to develop Spriter and seek investors in my off time. ...
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Via: Scirra
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One of the key questions we have faced is how to value a company, especially when it's not profitable yet, so we know how much equity to distribute and how much money we can raise in return. ...
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Blogger and Internet business entrepreneur from Australia |
Setting the early equity split in stone is one of the biggest mistakes founders can make. With their confidence in their startup and themselves, their passion for their work and their mission, and their desire not to harm the fragile dynamic within the nascent founding team, co-founders tend to plan for the best that can happen. ...
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Via: Startup Lessons
Trying to change how startups are built. |
VCs rarely go into an entrepreneur's pitch meeting with a completely open mind. Of course they have biases given their past experiences, like with any human interaction. More importantly, though, they have biases about whether or not they are going to find the opportunity attractive even before a word of the dialog has been spoken. [...] ...
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Via: GenuineVC
Venture capital investor and entrepreneur |
I've been invited to join as startup as employee #1. They're giving me a salary and an OK stock grant, but I want more stock. I have $95,000 saved from a previous exit. I don't need the money in savings because I've been making $150/hour as a consultant so my "plan B" is fine. Should I invest my $95k at a $1m valuation to bring my total stock allocation into the double-digits? Or should I keep th ...
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Via: A Smart Bear
Keyword, buzzword, half-truth, adjective, hey look at me! |
Here's the thing about startups: from the outside looking in, they seem sexy and fun. But once, you work for a startup, it doesn't take long to realize they're also all-consuming. Working for a startup is not a 9 to 5, punch the clock job. It can be a 24/7 thing. This is one of the reasons why I think it makes sense to offer every startup employee the opportunity to have a stake in the action ...
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Via: Mark Evans Tech
Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad, |
Question: I am one of three founders of a company. Up until now we have been bootstrapping the company from our own funds and working part time on the company while having full time jobs. One of us will be transitioning to the first full time paid employee of the company. The question is, does being the first full-time paid employee affect that founder's equity in the company? ...
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Via: Ask The VC
I'm a managing director at Foundry Group. I live in Boulder, |
One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. The easy answer of splitting it equally among all co-founders, since there is minimal value at that point, is usually the worst possible answer, and often results in a later startup failure due to an obvious inequity. ...
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Via: Gust Blog
Veteran startup mentor, executive, blogger, author, tech pro |
I wear two hats one as a general partner of a couple of seed stage VC funds, the other as an occasional angel investor. Wearing my angel-investing hat, I wanted to highlight an issue that I encourage founders to be careful about when pitching. ...
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Via: On Startups
seed/early stage VC at CommonAngels www.commonangels.com |
I'll write soon on my views of why I believe Instagram took off as a social network and what I think comes next. Instagram happens to be one of the few social networks I regularly use along with Twitter. I use it much more frequently than I've ever used Facebook and have done so since inception.... ...
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2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesfo |
What do Acquisio, Freshbooks, Hootsuite and Shopify all have in common? Well, for one, they are all kick ass, high growth Canadian startups. For another, they all started out as web agencies. i.e. service companies. Each has a different story for how they transitioned from services to product. ...
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Via: Mark MacLeod
Seed investor for SaaS, e-commerce and other awesome startup |
Possibly the most interesting running conversation I've been having with entrepreneurs lately is how they can keep their companies independent without having to go public and turn their cap table into a casino. There are a bunch of entrepreneurs thinking seriously about this issue ...
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Via: AVC
I am a VC |
There had not yet been a Dropbox valuation. Airbnb had only recently launched. And Heroku was still a small 12-person company. The prevailing conversation was about how Y Combinator companies produce features not products. How the companies had strong technical teams but would need maturity before being ready for a seed level institutional investment. Even the top 2 or 3 companies of the batch s ...
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Via: Humble MBA
humbledMBA, 42Floors, FlightCaster, Y Combinator, Shwayder, |
Vesting in general (and founder vesting in particular) is an oft-misunderstood tool that has a tendency to really screw up young companies. There are some deep misconceptions at work here that often cause founders all sorts of grief. Most of it comes from the simple fact that stock grants are, at their heart, a crude hack to avoid taxes. Vesting is a hack to the hack - and one almost every fo ...
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Via: Dan Shapiro
Google acquired @sparkbuy, so I now work on www.google.com/a |
An entrepreneur pointed out to me that some startups choose a middle ground between bootstrapping and raising institutional money: exclusively raising angel money. Comparing angel investors to VCs is relatively straightforward but there isn't much talk about startups that only raise money from angels. ...
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Via: David Cummings
10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family, |
There is nothing inherently wrong with high valuations if everyone is aligned in exit expectations. The problem is I don't think the alignment is there in many cases. The rule of thumb in angel/vc investing (and yes, I realize they differ in a lot of ways but I'm trying to simplify) is to shoot for a 10x return on exit. ...
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Via: Gabriel Weinberg
My only regret is that I have... boneitis. |
As with most things, there are philosophical differences in the approach to founder equity. One camp believes that founder equity should never be evenly split because it can result in stalemates, which can kill a company fast. The other camp believes that fairness should prevail and if an even split seems fair, then it’s appropriate. ...
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Via: Daily Muse
Start-up and tech lawyer; aspiring craft distiller |
In January 2010, I remember shakingFounder Collective's Eric Paley's hand after pitching Yipit to him for an hour and struggling to smile as we left his office. The meeting had been a complete disaster. Founder Collective wasn't going to be investing. Maybe nobody would. I remember thinking I had been so foolish for having been excited just a few hours before. ...
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Via: Bostinnovation
Co-Founder and CEO of @Yipit. Sharing lessons learned as a f |
Lots of people, myself included, have written lots of posts on how to get funded. In fact, a whole section of this blog is devoted to that topic. While all those details are great, it struck me recently that there are three keys to getting funded ...
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Via: Mark MacLeod
Seed investor for SaaS, e-commerce and other awesome startup |
It's pretty simple and obvious advice, but always discount an investor’s enthusiasm based on how excited they are about a meeting. I also never consider an investor as more than 50% likely to close until the term sheet is signed. ...
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Via: Robgo.org
Cofounder of NextView Ventures. Founding advisor at Boundle |
The very first time I ever negotiated a term sheet (and then legal docs for closing the round) I found the experience very frustrating. I was desperate to get my funding finalized to derisk my business as well as to get capital in the bank to meet our growing cash needs. But my VC didn't seem to be in such a rush. Nor did their lawyer. ...
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2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesfo |
I have a question for my fellow investors - is it just me, or are entrepreneurs lying to you, too? I met an entrepreneur the other day and as he walked me through his pitch he showed a slide that detailed his team and his advisors. On the Advisory Board he listed Eric, a friend of mine. After the meeting, which had gone pretty well, I called Eric. Eric replied, "I'm not on their Advisory Board." ...
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Via: Can I Buy A Vowel?
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VC behavior sometimes looks insane, but generally it's just sound economics. It's crazy but true: if you know how a VC gets paid, you can pretty much read their mind. Here's a few examples: ...
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Via: Swombat on Startups
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All too often (and I find myself doing this too), due to the plethora of startups being created people tend to quickly dismiss many of them solely based on the current idea without even paying consideration to the entrepreneur or where it could go. ...
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Via: Nat Turner
Co-founder of Flatiron Health. Previously Co-Founder/CEO of |
One of the things I'm seeing more and more of lately is startups raising entire rounds from either (a) a group of angel investors and/or (b) relatively uninvolved VC’s. The result of this is a fragmented investor group, often no board being created, and in general a bunch of people who are watching on the sidelines but no one investor greatly incentivized to be involved. ...
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Via: Nat Turner
Co-founder of Flatiron Health. Previously Co-Founder/CEO of |
In many respects, raising capital is a journey. It can happen in a heartbeat or it can become a marathon. But if attracting venture capital is what needs to happen, a startup needs to stay the course and follow through. ...
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Via: Mark Evans Tech
Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad, |
Today I was on the phone with the CEO of a company with almost $10 million in venture funding. This guy was smart, helpful and serious. We were on the phone because we're running companies in the same space, using similar technologies. But we're targeting different customers. "Dan," he said, "I like what you're doing. I think it's interesting. But it's not a big enough market opportunity for us ...
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Via: Dan Shipper
UPenn junior. Co-Founder at @UseFirefly. Jets fan. |
I've written before about how the very first email to an angel investor really matters, or at least to this angel investor. It's very easy to get thrown in a bucket of wannabes or bad first-timers. Here are a few of those red flags from my perspective. ...
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Via: Gabriel Weinberg
Founder, DuckDuckGo. Angel investor. Family guy. |
What I've learned from talking with some very experienced and highly respected successful serial entrepreneurs is that there are only really two good times to raise funding. The first is when you have just an idea, and you’ve not even started to build. The second is when you have a product with good traction you can show to investors. ...
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Via: joel.is
Founder of @bufferapp, a smarter way to share. Focused on th |
While in the midst of raising capital, you should also be recruiting top talent. That’s precisely the right time to start attracting people to the company. You’re building momentum for funding, in an effort to attract investors. You’re going after press attention, growing your network, bringing on advisors ...
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Via: Instigator Blog
VP Product @GoInstant. Partner @YearOneLabs. Ex-CEO/Founder |
Cash is the fuel of every startup. Your burn rate is the rate at which that money is being spent, and allows an estimate of how long you can go before refueling (runway). That refueling is when you will need more investment, or when you will break even and begin that steep profitable growth curve. ...
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Veteran startup mentor, executive, blogger, author, tech pro |
Tracy DiNunzio isn't your typical Silicon Valley startup founder. She's a painter and a self-proclaimed Bohemian. She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. And she didn't start her company in Northern California. Tracy built her company, Recycled Media, out of necessity. She hasn't raised any venture capital. ...
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2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesfo |
I'm a firm believer that perfection doesn't exist and even less so for a new startup. When it comes to startups, I think the "Done is better than perfect" mantra fits perfectly. And if a startup holds that mantra close to heart, it should result in something that resembles Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook's "The Hacker Way". ...
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Via: Adii
Entrepreneur, co-founder of WooThemes and general creator of |
If you follow startups at all, you'll likely notice that there are precisely two camps when it comes to raising venture funding of any sort: those who trumpet each new round as if the company won the Super Bowl and those who believe bootstrapping is the only legitimate way to build a business. ...
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Via: stu.mp
Co-founder of @sprintly, @attachmentsme, and @simplegeo. Cyc |
Micah Baldwin has a great post on the confusing roles and responsibilities between mentors, advisors and investors. It’s a must read for any entrepreneur (particularly those in accelerators where the roles are often mashed together even more.) ...
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Via: Instigator Blog
VP Product @GoInstant. Partner @YearOneLabs. Ex-CEO/Founder |
Angel investors can be a Godsend… and not just because they can help fund your business. When I founded Mosaic, I spent a lot of time meeting with Angel investors and telling then about how my company helps photographer’s better access and store their photos. I did too much telling and not enough listening. I was in full sales mode. I believed it was my job to convince them that Mosaic was a ...
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Via: Bostinnovation
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When entrepreneurs ask me about raising money I like to ask them: what's your founder math for VC money to make sense? I believe entrepreneurs should build their business to last with no exit strategy, but if you do have a goal of selling it in 5-10 years some founder math related to equity is in order. If you take a look at founder equity at time of IPO you'll see it's in the 4-15% range and only ...
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Via: David Cummings
10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family, |
I guess this is likely the most obvious thing I can say about bootstrapping or running a lean startup: it seems that the obvious thing to do is to cut away all of the unnecessary expenses and only spend money on things that are needed in furthering the business. Yet I don’t think the principle is that clear. ...
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Via: Adii
Entrepreneur, co-founder of WooThemes and general creator of |
When the Series A check clears, most startups send out a bragging press release, the equivalent of flashing your grill. The VC backing is supposed to mean that the company has experienced hands in its corner. That it’s financially solid. A shoe-in for a puff profile piece in a magazine. Eligible for lunch conversation in Silicon Valley. But if customers actually think about what a venture cap ...
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Creator of Ruby on Rails, Partner at 37signals, Co-author of |
Perhaps you heard the story last week of the graffiti artist who spray-painted Facebook's first offices, took stock instead of cash, and now stands to make $500 million off the company's IPO. If it made you wonder how you might get some equity in the next hot startup, I have some bad news: unless you're wealthy enough to qualify as an "accredited investor". ...
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Via: Bostinnovation
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A couple of days ago a friend asked me whether I'm in favor of startups getting angel investment. He pointed out this post on this blog, which is me writing about five good reasons not to seek investment. My answer … Continue reading → ...
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Via: Gust Blog
Founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software; entrepreneur, bu |
There is a lot of discussion on the web about raising seed and series A rounds, but not much after that. I think there is some false conventional wisdom these days that once a company has achieved "product market fit" the job is done. However, that is far from the truth, and I often hear. ...
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Via: Robgo.org
Cofounder of NextView Ventures. Founding advisor at Boundle |
Bootstrapping obviously works best when you don’t have loads of expenses & overheads burdening you down. One of these expenses that seems unavoidable in a startup, is marketing-related expenditure. Regardless of what you classify under marketing, most of your options (PPC, Banner Advertising, PR etc.) will cost you something. The free alternatives are obviously viable, but they rely on signif ...
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Via: Adii
Entrepreneur, co-founder of WooThemes and general creator of |
One of the many fascinating aspects of Facebook’s S-1 filing for its $5-billion IPO was how it handed options to employees, freelancers and contractors. This included graffiti artist David Choe, who accepted options rather than a few thousands dollars for painting Facebook’s first office. It put the spotlight on the question about how generous startups should ...
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Via: Mark Evans Tech
Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad, |
For many startup entrepreneurs, raising their first venture capital round is like winning the Super Bowl. It validates what they’re doing, their vision and all the hard work that’s happened. When the deal is signed, there are lots of high fives and the champagne flows. It’s good times, baby! The funny thing is you wake ...
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Via: Mark Evans Tech
Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad, |
Recently a CEO in our portfolio asked me a question that I get often: As a startup with limited capital is it better to be cautious and stretch runway or should you be aggressive and reduce runway? The answer of course is “it depends”. You cannot save your way to greatness. If you don’t invest [...] ...
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Via: Mark MacLeod
Seed investor for SaaS, e-commerce and other awesome startup |
Posted in EssaysFor the next couple of weeks, Mondays will be “Bootstrap Mondays” on the blog & I’ll try to share some insight into how we’ve bootstrapped WooThemes to the size & significance it is today. Way back in 2007 (2 November 2007 to be exact) when I first released the original product that lead to me meeting my co-founders and us launching WooThemes, I wasn ...
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Via: Adii
Entrepreneur, co-founder of WooThemes and general creator of |
I met with an entrepreneur for lunch recently who had just completed raising a modest series A round. Curious, I asked about the most challenging part of the process. His answer was maintaining the faith in your startup’s vision. It was an interesting answer because you might expect the answer would be the preparations, the [...] ...
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Via: Mark Evans Tech
Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad, |
An "elevator pitch" is a concise, well-practiced description of your startup and your plan, delivered with conviction and enthusiasm, that your mother should be able to understand in the time it would take to ride up an elevator. Everybody knows about these, but few people seem to deliver a good one. A good elevator pitch is not just for an elevator discussion. Use it in every networkin ...
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Veteran startup mentor, executive, blogger, author, tech pro |
We’ll get there, but let’s start here: I don’t believe in “angel portfolio theory,†which applies Wall Street’s favorite myth to the early stage world. According to this approach, the “smart†way to do angel investing is massive diversification, with … Continue reading → ...
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Via: Gust Blog
Optimistic skeptic, flaming moderate. Entrepreneur, technolo |
I have had a lot of conversations lately with entrepreneurs about how to value their businesses. This is always an emotional topic but a very important one nonetheless. In this blog post, I will put forward three methods for valuing a start-up, all three of which I believe should come in to play for most businesses. Method #1 – using financial metrics: No duh, right? This is how you are s ...
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Via: Bostinnovation
Husband, father, runner. Lead @SVB_Financial early-stage tec |
Subject: Small taxi company looking to expand Hello, I run a small taxi company outside of Boston Massachusetts. My community has been targeted for casino development and I am looking to expand my business. Could you possibly provide some advice on how to find venture capital? ...
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Via: Dan Shapiro
Google acquired @sparkbuy, so I now work on www.google.com/a |
In a prior post about what it’s like to be a VC  I made the claim that even if an investor has operating experience, that experience gets stale after a few years. This led to the following question in my comments: “You mention that operational skills begin to decline 2 years into the job. If this is [...] ...
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Via: Robgo.org
Cofounder of NextView Ventures. Founding advisor at Boundle |
Raising money is hard. And when you’re relatively new to the process it’s easy to be confused by the process. There is all sorts of advice on the Internet about how to raise capital. Of course much of it is conflicting. I’ve raised money as a “hot company” and I’ve raised capital when no one [...] ...
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2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesfo |
My wife isn't in business, but she is wise in the way of funding. Just as I have experience on both sides of the funding table (as an entrepreneur and as an angel), so does she. As a research scientist, she gets her own grants and also reviews grants from others. While she doesn't talk in startup lingo (pivots, minimum viable product, etc.), she has taught me that many of the issues we face as e ...
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Via: On Startups
Entrepreneur. Founder/CTO @HubSpot inbound marketing and st |
Contrary to what you are seeing in the press there is simply too much money in the World at the moment; too much capital seeking too few investment opportunities. Remember the 1930s depression created more Millionaires than in any other era (ever), and now will be no different. A large amount of High net worth [...] ...
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Via: Under30CEO
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Following is something that happens to me on a regular basis, with a new and exciting twist. I’m telling this story both to vent (maybe I’m grumpy today – I don’t know) as well as for an object lesson on how not to interact with a VC, or at least with me. First – the [...] ...
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Via: Feld Thoughts
I'm a managing director at Foundry Group. I live in Boulder, |
In most equity financing rounds, an investor will ask for (and get) a term called a liquidation preference. A liquidation preference is the amount that must be paid to a preferred stock holder before any sale proceeds may be paid to the holders of common stock (i.e., founders, option holders, etc.). The amount of the [...] ...
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Via: Startup Lawyer
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With “lean and mean” becoming a startup mantra, the idea of bootstrapping has become sexy because it talks to the ability to build something from scratch while maintaining your freedom and independence. The ability to bootstrap has become more possible as the costs to nurture develop and market a product have declined. What may have [...] ...
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Via: Mark Evans Tech
Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad, |
In previous articles, I have occasionally mentioned “red flags†which every potential investor unconsciously listens for. Other writers, like Guy Kawasaki, have irreverently called some of these “entrepreneur lies,†but I prefer to think of them as innocent over-enthusiasm or over-confidence that can kill your deal. At any rate, here is my summary of the [...] ...
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Via: Hot Sauce!
Veteran startup mentor, executive, blogger, author, tech pro |
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