Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. In tech startups stock options were here almost from the beginning, first offered to the founders in 1957 at Fairchild Semiconductor , the first chip startup in Silicon Valley. And Mark Suster of Upfront Capital has a great post that summarizes these changes.

Stock Options 334

Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 334

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

When I was raising money for my first company we had closed a seed round in 1999 and were working on our A round. We had many term sheets (it was 1999 and we had a pulse) and we were deciding which one to take. It was December 1999. We moved into the legal process and final due diligence in January and February of 2000.

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. Brad’s start in Venture Capital. Brad on blogging. was starting.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital. But some companies have entrepreneurs that seem talented on paper, are in a space that seems interesting to investors and are able to raise venture capital early in the company’s existence. True story.) He was to head up UK operations.

Founder 299

Founder Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

These days there are many lawyers that will do equity deals cheaply as long is it is a standardized, simplified term sheet, early stage, no serious investor / management debates, limited IP / customers / due diligence and as long as they perceive you as a “hot&# company that’s likely to need legal services for many years ahead. (if

Finance 286

Finance Term Sheet Technical Review Warrant 286

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

I kept pointing to the artificial gains in the Nasdaq in 1999 and said, “just because you bought in Feb ’99 and sold in Sept ’99 for a large gain doesn’t meant the asset was correctly priced.&# My message to everybody at the time, “Sell! It was an investment management class. This requires novel thinking.

Florida 299

Florida Technical Review San Antonio Los Angeles 299

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. On December 3rd Brad Feld wrote a one paragraph blog post titled “ Raising Venture Capital &# in which he linked to my blog. The managing partner of the firm called me the next day. Thus is venture capital. Tempus Fugit.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

That’s a sizeable amount, especially in comparison to the US venture capital industry, which similarly invests over $20 billion annually. In 2013, 298,800 angels invested in 70,730 entrepreneurial ventures, according to the 2013 Angel Market Analysis by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

Angel Investor 114

Angel Investor Technical Review Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation 114

David Teten

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

Prior to joining ff Venture Capital , I published the first-ever study of how private equity and venture capital funds originate new investments, with my coauthor Chris Farmer , CEO of SignalFire and an experienced VC. The median VC reviews 87 opportunities before making 1 investment. ff Venture Capital.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Equity 114

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Let’s review all of our existing investments. I need leaders who manage in good times and bad.To build a large company you need to manage through economic cycles. 2010 was the year of the “super angel&# and 2011 has to date been the year of unbelievably highly priced B,C & D rounds of venture capital.

Stock 305

Stock Technical Review Marketing Greece 305

K9 Ventures

APRIL 20, 2019

In 1998–1999, when I was running my first company, one of my investors, the late Don Jones , came by to visit us at the office. For those it behoves us to spend the time to think through the choices diligently, and make the best decision we can with the information we have. The architecture and technology will have to evolve over time.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review San Francisco Startup Architecture 117

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. The Greycroft event was a 10 out of 10 so I’ve diligently taken notes. I’m typing this from the lawn of Alan Patricof’s “Greycroft” home in East Hampton – my first time in the Hamptons.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

My original post was directed at hiring managers. My view still stands – for many hiring managers a large factor in looking through resumes of somebody who is 30+ and has never worked somewhere for more than 18 months will be the job hopping element. I learned how to better run a product management process.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Hiring Software Review Stock Options 285

Ben's Blog

MAY 24, 2021

Editor’s Note: This testimony was delivered by a16z managing partner Scott Kupor to the U.S. By way of background, I am the Managing Partner for Andreessen Horowitz, a $16.5 billion multi-stage venture capital firm focused on IT-related investments… I also serve on various investment committees, including for the St.

SEC 36

SEC Accredited Investor IPO Technical Review 36

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5 What is total assets under management? - Tags: Pitching VCs Raising Venture Capital VC Industry.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Early Stage Software Review 269

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

by Michael Woolf that is worth any startup founder reading to get a sense of perspective on the reality warp that is startup world during a frothy market such as 1997-1999, 2005-2007 or 2012-2014. You technically have more gas left but you never know if some unexpected circumstance causes you to run out of gas.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

VC Cafe

DECEMBER 28, 2010

. “Juniper is excited to acquire one of the industry’s leading virtualization security vendors and the extremely talented team that built it,&# – Mark Bauhaus, executive vice president and general manager, Juniper Networks. The technology was developed in collaboration with Bar-Ilan University.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review South Korea Mexico 87

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

While not 1999 all over again but I am observing first-hand the signs of funding frenzy. We as a country are suffering from what is known as “ structural unemployment &# where jobs have disappeared from certain segments forever due to technological or structural obsolescence. VCs get paid to “put money to work.&#.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Technical Review Balance Sheet Government 298

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

The VCs basically have liquidity in management fees along the way, in the sense they get paid decently along the way. But the day after you’ll wake up and see yourself more as a manager than an owner. Coupled with my participating preferred from 1999 and 2000 I had more than $55 million of liquidation preferences.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

This was the year that the promise of technology to truly change the world and empower individuals (the reason I entered the tech world in 1994) reached global scale. Kiva co-founder Jessica Jackley’s latest venture Profounder is one platform that could power these transactions.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

online.wsj.com

JULY 11, 2012

Technology. This service is temporary unavailable due to system maintenance. As a registered user of The Wall Street Journal Online, you will be able to: Setup and manage your portfolio. Receive and manage newsletters. Loading… Tech. Personal Technology. TECHNOLOGY. WSJ Classroom. My Journal.

Silicon Valley 42

Silicon Valley Founder Software Review Technical Review 42

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. I get approached about clean tech or biotech periodically – I don’t focus on these. Others that are experts in this field include Matt Harris at Village Ventures and Jim Robinson at RRE. Right for my stage?

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 17, 2013

Despite Benchmark’s strong association with ecommerce during the late 1990’s due to the success of companies like eBay, we have not been particularly active in ecommerce in the past several years. In addition to market concerns, I had the unique experience of working with Dan Nordstrom and the team at Nordstrom.com in August of 1999.

eCommerce 62

eCommerce Technical Review North America San Francisco 62

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

In late 2015, many public technology companies saw a significant retrenchment in their share prices primarily as a result of a reduction in valuation multiples. These mutual funds “mark-to-market” every day, and fund managers are compensated periodically on this performance. In Q1 of 2016 there were zero VC-backed technology IPOs.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Seeing Both Sides

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

This post was co-authored with Omri Stern and originally appeared in Harvard Business Review. Only a handful of so-called unicorns — companies that have achieved a valuation of over $1 billion in the last 10 years — come from Israel, and only one Israeli firm, Teva, ranks in the world’s 500 largest companies by market capitalization.

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Review United States 20

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

These are good things to think about and companies to study as we move back from consumer to Enterprise in the tech cycle. And so we think that the model flipped to a model where, today, where the most interesting and advanced new technology now comes out for the consumer first. Security, Cloud, NoSQL databases, etc.

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22