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Startup Stock Options – Why A Good Deal Has Gone Bad

Steve Blank

We slept under the tables, and pulled all-nighters to get to first customer ship, man the booths at trade shows or ship products to make quarterly revenue – all because it was “our” company. In the 20 th century, the best companies IPO’d in 6-8 years from startup (and in the Dot-Com bubble of 1996-1999 that could be as short as 2-3 years.)

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The Silliness Of Recapping Seed Rounds

Feld Thoughts

The feedback is “come back when you’ve made more progress with customers.” But in this cycle, I hadn’t seen it in a seed round. When I made 40 seed investments between 1994 and 1996, I had a philosophy that I’d double down on a seed investment. The product gets a lot better.