Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

So what magic can the founders use to justify a $4M valuation (or even the $1M valuation) at this early stage? Assign probabilities to active customer sales efforts, just as sales managers do in quantifying a salesman’s forecast. This is the most concrete valuation element, usually called the asset approach.

Valuation 234

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Startup 234

Small Business Force

FEBRUARY 21, 2014

In early stage companies (and even some later stage or mature ones), there is no one area where most entrepreneurs and small business owners are lacking in just basic fundamentals, than in dealing with their company's finances and financial management. Follow the "gospel of cash flow" and it starts with revenue generation.

Finance 37

Finance Management Forecast Entrepreneur 37

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2018

However, you’ll also need a steady flow of funds, especially in the early stages, to turn those ideas into reality. Your business model must show the potential to increase the revenue with minimal expenditure in the coming months or years. Your business plan also needs to have a realistic financial forecast.

SBA 84

SBA Angel Investor Technical Review Startup 84

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. Talking about trends is more about trying to forecast the future, like a guru, sometimes it works, sometimes not. Maybe, but the thought never even entered our minds. About spot trends.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

Peter: Techstars is probably the most famous accelerator but the idea of the accelerator versus the incubator because there is living field, because there’s this very early stage fields for them both. The cool thing is with the device like, that with the science like that, there’s a lot of early stage proving ground needed.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

www.currentlyobsessed.com

MAY 28, 2010

It hardly deserves any attention at all in the early stages. The net effect was more money raised, higher valuation and the same percentage of equity sold. For some closing thoughts, I’ll just add that: Valuation tends to be too much of a focus for most early stage companies.

Valuation 42

Valuation Channel Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 42

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

What I did is I learned the art of a pro forma and the value of a pro forma which basically is a forecast. Two, revenue. If you don’t know what your cash flow forecast is, you don’t really understand your capital needs. My name is John Bates. You heard a little bit from others about that. What do you do?

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95