Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Valuations are out of control” is the mantra of others. Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999. We’re in a new tech bubble!” some have pronounced.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital IPO Mezzanine Early Stage 292

David Cohen

MARCH 30, 2020

In 1999, we sold that business and I started angel investing. Founded in 2006, Techstars ran our first startup accelerator in 2007. Uber took the shockingly low valuation of $4m when raising it’s first $1.5m. 3m valuation. Less than a $2m valuation for their seed round. I didn’t really see how it would affect me.

Founder 174

Founder Valuation Startup IP 174

The Equity Kicker

JULY 1, 2015

He used this chart as evidence: Second, I read Josh Kopelman’s/First Round Capital’s Open Letter to Investors from May this year which says that seed valuations are up 3x from 2007-2015 without a corresponding increase in exits. Note that we can see a similar increase in Series A valuations in Fred’s chart above.

Valuation 60

Valuation Seed Stage Partner Marketing 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

These companies can range from tech startups to food trucks to retail stores. Sohl: “The Angel Investor Market in 2009: Holding Steady but Changes in Seed and Startup Investments”. approx 1999-07. Villalobos & Payne: “Startup Pre-Money Valuation: The Keystone to Return on Investment” 117.

Angel Investor 114

Angel Investor Technical Review Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation 114

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Salesforce.com is a startup with 76,000 subscribers (over 2.1M I also joke with Reid Hoffman that this was back in the days before he was “Reid” Reid’s an incredible entrepreneur, startup investor, and human being. How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. May 26, 2011.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 5, 2017

Her background includes senior roles in both the banking and tech sectors, and she has launched four data businesses—including her current firm, New Frontier Data , which boasts a $20 million valuation and has received $5 million in funding. A study via Dow Jones entitled “ Women at the Wheel: Do Female Executives Drive Startup Success?

Venture Capital 82

Venture Capital Lean Cofounder Technical Review 82

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 10, 2016

As an entrepreneur mentor and startup investor, I see with sadness the 50 to 90 percent that fail. With the success of Facebook and Twitter, I still see new social media startups almost every day, with most destined to fail. The fallacy of formulas that “can’t fail,” and holding on to troubled ventures, is alive and well in startups.

Business Model 120

Business Model Intellectual Property Startup Bankruptcy 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2015

As an entrepreneur mentor and startup investor, I see with sadness the 50 to 90 percent that fail. With the success of Facebook and Twitter, I still see new social media startups almost every day, with most destined to fail. The fallacy of formulas that “can’t fail,” and holding on to troubled ventures, is alive and well in startups.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Bankruptcy Viral 120

thebarefootvc

MAY 8, 2012

The best VCs are the ones that balance their optimism, vision and enthusiasm for startups with realism based on very real constraints (the primary one being his/her own time, but also includes market development and exit timing). As an entrepreneur at heart, I often innately grasp the potential of entrepreneurs and ideas that I meet with.

Venture Capital 78

Venture Capital Syndicate Syndication Bandwidth 78

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2018

Despite the fact that the number of IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) for startups have continued to stay low, I still hear it touted often as the preferred exit strategy. Concerns over valuations being reset to a new normal, and a soft exit market, are seen as key drivers. Everyone dreams of becoming a billionaire overnight.

Exit Strategy 128

Exit Strategy IPO Initial Public Offering SEC 128

Feld Thoughts

JULY 19, 2018

“Historically, the $10 million valuation mark has been somewhat of a ceiling for seed stage startups. It has happened only one other time in my investing career – in 1999. In addition to our own funds, we are investors in a number of other early-stage VC funds as part of our Foundry Group Next strategy.

Early Stage 105

Early Stage Seed Stage Valuation Finance 105

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 11, 2010

I recently wrote a blog post about why I believe that startup teams in close proximity perform better. I’m surprised how few people talk about valuations, term sheet terms, how much to pay recruiters, etc. And you can tell that the founders have thought greatly about creating the right kind of space for startup companies.

San Francisco 285

San Francisco Incubator Silicon Valley Startup 285

Start Up Blog

AUGUST 25, 2013

I was recently at the Melbourne Startup Grind event down at Depo8. NetMind: Alan was a cofounder of this startup, which he said never really made money. They made a trade sale in late 1999. When asked how one should value a company that doesn’t make any – he said the ‘Cisco Valuation Model’ is best.

Australia 80

Australia Startup Valuation Cofounder 80

The Equity Kicker

APRIL 11, 2012

The question on everyone’s lips is, of course, ‘how come a two year old startup with no revenues is worth $1bn?’. I think that high priced acquisitions of startups are often valued with half an eye to the acquirers share price. I think that is the difference between 1999 and today.

IPO 110

IPO Valuation Forecast Acquisition 110

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

The trend of funding anything from the first $25k to funding $50 million at a billion+ valuation is unlikely to last as the skills and style to be effective at all stages are diverse enough to warrant focus. When I built my first company starting in 1999 it cost $2.5 These people understand that the nature of startups have changed.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

I freely admit this (along with nearly everything between 1999-2000) was a mistake. We set our sites on our IPO price and then worked back to our current valuation and showed potential employees what we thought they could earn (with all legal caveats) if the company was successful. Tags: Startup Advice. This is mostly true.

Stock Options 294

Stock Options Stock Valuation Liquidation Preference 294

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2009

This is part of my Startup Advice series. at a startup that has already raised $5 million the chances of you making your retirement money on that company is EXTREMELY small. It was 1999. So a friend recently called to ask for advice on becoming the CTO of a startup. Let’s face it. Let’s face it.

Stock Options 418

Stock Options Stock Liquidation Preference Option Pool 418

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

"Every investor and entrepreneur knows there is something scary about the current startup economy. At least nine out of ten high-quality angel-funded startups face an unnecessary death, because there is no Series A money to help them survive critical expansion. Valuations. Are their valuations justified?

Angel Investor 104

Angel Investor Valuation Startup Revenue 104

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

If you take a snapshot during an extraordinary surge in valuations, M&A activity, IPOs and thus wealth creation you’d echo John Doerr’s famous quote from 1999 that, “The Internet is the greatest legal creation of wealth in history.&# If you’re a tech startup person I know you know what I mean.

IPO 391

IPO Finance Valuation Naming 391

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

Startups such as Shopkick offered real time deals when users were in stores and Shopsavvy and similar mobile price comparison tools from Amazon and Google empowered consumers to find the best deals. As of year-end, Foursquare had over 15 million users, with an exponential growth rate globally.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. When you’re an early-stage startup that hasn’t raised any institutional money you end up doing almost every job function of the company yourself. When I founded my first company along with Brian Moran (whose idea it was) I had no real experience running startups.

Founder 299

Founder Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 299

The Startup Lawyer

OCTOBER 9, 2010

But this morning I read a Dallas Business Journal article that I found amusing: A new accelerator is planning to invest $200,000 and provide up to 45,000 square feet of office space to about 10 mobile app startups in exchange for 15-20% equity in each startup. (a) a) That’s $20,000 per startup for a 15%-20% equity stake.

Dallas 91

Dallas Seed Capital Incubator Post-Money Valuation 91

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 22, 2018

They run the gamut from affiliate marketing to startup conferences with virtually everything in between. We’ve used this experience to take the guesswork out of which conferences are the most valuable for a startup founder to attend. There are upwards of 100 digital conferences each year catering to the ecosystem. LTV Conference.

Las Vegas 124

Las Vegas Software Review Affiliate Cofounder 124

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Mark Suster wrote a great post yesterday titled The Resetting of the Startup Industry. I started investing in 1994 and while there was some bumpiness in 1997 and again in 1999, the real pain happened between 2000 and 2005. But, as you raise more money at higher valuations, this will normalize.

Cap Table 70

Cap Table Down Round Liquidation Preference Founder 70

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Advisor. ); STARTUP. Before Roving Software could receive its first round of financing from professional investors, in early 1999, he had to put all the stock arrangements in writing. As you think about how much equity to offer, have a reasonable valuation in mind thats been determined using professional advice. Newsletters.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

thebarefootvc

JULY 3, 2016

New York City : NYC is growing as a startup hub; yet early stage (seed, small A rounds) institutional capital has not kept up with the local growth. While focus is essential in early startup days, we live in a hyperconnected world, and a global network and perspective is becoming essential to startup success. 2015EOY_FPV_v31.

North America 40

North America Early Stage New York City Portfolio 40

thebarefootvc

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

New York City : NYC is growing as a startup hub; yet early stage (seed, small A rounds) institutional capital has not kept up with the local growth. While focus is essential in early startup days, we live in a hyperconnected world, and a global network and perspective is becoming essential to startup success.

North America 40

North America Early Stage New York City Portfolio 40

David Teten

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Karen Bantuveris, CEO of VolunteerSpot ( ff VC and angel-backed startup with 2.5m From the perspective of best practices, we will address questions such as: How to assess opportunities (idea, team, valuation). How to build a portfolio of startup investments. What to do when your portfolio startup pivots.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity North America Cofounder Angel Groups 114

Ben's Blog

JULY 16, 2013

If you run a startup and are currently raising money, you probably planned for a somewhat different fundraising environment than the one you find yourself in today. You probably thought that valuations would be roughly the same as they were the last time you raised money. 3/31/1999: 49.7. You can plan a pretty picnic.

Down Round 78

Down Round Marketing Preferred Stock Post-Money Valuation 78

Austin Startup

JULY 23, 2010

Having been founded in 1999, Zilliant is hard to categorize as a startup anymore. The cash looks good on the balance sheet, and venture investors want to pile on money at low valuations before the valuation increases by 10x as a public stock. Most people don’t really think of pricing as an elastic thing.

Balance Sheet 67

Balance Sheet Private Equity LP IPO 67

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2011

I followed her writing and bought her AOL book back in 1999. That's how you win out in the venture and startup world. Kidding aside, Swisher said, “dudes in Silicon Valley” do seem to have no trouble playing the game and picking up the inside lingo of pumped-up valuations and venture capitalist name-dropping.".

Silicon Valley 112

Silicon Valley Cofounder Venture Capital Valuation 112

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

I tried a bunch of jobs: I taught fourth grade, worked at a nonprofit, and made an ungodly amount of money doing odd jobs at a dot-com because hey, it was 1999. I studied creative writing in college, and was dismayed to discover, upon graduating, that it didn’t offer me a surefire way to pay my rent.

Valuation 48

Valuation Bankruptcy California Media 48

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

I founded a startup years ago, and that’s how I started getting a taste of it. The startup didn’t work out, but I found ways to be around it, whether it was on the sales side in Goldman for a few years. How does that translate into advice that you give to your startups? What guidance for your portfolio companies?

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

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. million at a $15 million pre-money valuation. It was December 1999. Let me start with a story.

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 26, 2015

I’ve seen several cycles in the market since I first started venture investing in 1999, and I believe there has been no greater potential for wealth creation in the sector than there is now. Pay attention to who you’re taking money from and aim for a reasonable valuation. Don’t be penny wise, pound foolish.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 26, 2015

I’ve seen several cycles in the market since I first started venture investing in 1999, and I believe there has been no greater potential for wealth creation in the sector than there is now. Pay attention to who you’re taking money from and aim for a reasonable valuation. Don’t be penny wise, pound foolish.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Chris Dixon , September 12, 2010 My most useful career experience was about eight years ago when I was trying to break into the world of VC-backed startups. Why You Should Write. Your service: the game.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191