Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Silicon Valley is still emerging from the tech bubble and massive downturn of late 2000-2002. Salesforce.com is a startup with 76,000 subscribers (over 2.1M As I’m fond of saying, startup fundraising isn’t about convincing skeptics but rather finding true believers.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

As a courtesy if you enjoyed his write-up please check out his startup company, ChannelStack. Infonautics went public in 1996 and Half.com was sold to eBay in 2000. Twitter wanted to raise money for this new venture at a pre-money valuation which was quite a bit higher than First Round’s $10 million limit. and Half.com.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

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

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

We both agree that the later-stage valuations are being driven up to a point that feels irrationally priced [he uses b-round SaaS valuations as an example and I am willing to be even more broad based]. Video 1 is here : Late stage valuations are in a mini bubble. This can’t all be driven by increased company performance).

Valuation 309

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Later Stage Non-Compete 309

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2016

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

Incubator 120

Incubator Silicon Valley Startup Small Business Administration 120

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”. Villalobos & Payne: “Startup Pre-Money Valuation: The Keystone to Return on Investment” 117. More than 90% of startups fail.[2]

Angel Investor 114

Angel Investor Technical Review Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation 114

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

If you’ve taken the roller coaster ride that is a startup – you know what I’m talking about. The truth is that in my experience very, very few people really enjoy the “pure&# startup environment: months with no salary, months with no live product and lots of trial, error & rejection. It’s addicting. La vita e bella.

Entrepreneur 384

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 384

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

It’s no coincidence we designed 500 Startups with these evolutions in mind, altho none of the required strategies have been easy to execute and we are still refining our approach. In short, we were a lot more geeky than the previous generation of fund managers , and we started blogging a lot about tech startups and best practices.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

The two decades from 1979 when pension funds fueled the expansion of venture capital to 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst were the Golden Age for entrepreneurs and venture capital firms. VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. Startup Lifecycle Today.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 299

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 25, 2015

Startups and venture funds run for 5-10+ years, are likely to see a recession at some point in their lives (maybe two) and hence need to be able to survive and prosper in both recessionary and growth environments. But at same time market crashes changes things for startups. I saw that in 2000 and then again in 2008.

Valuation 60

Valuation Startup Stock Portfolio 60

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

Startup founders should expect that it will take seven or more years to exit their company. If I think back over the sixteen years I’ve been investing in startups the market for private company investing was tough from 2000-2004, from 2008-2011 and is getting tough again now.

Startup 60

Startup Metrics Valuation Operations 60

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Advisor. ); STARTUP. Jumpstart was one of Grahams first clients; it signed on shortly after he founded Arizona Bay, in 2000. In the past few years, hundreds of small companies have been snatched up by private equity firms willing to agree to ever-rising valuations. Graham is careful about whom he chooses to partner with.

Arizona 40

Arizona Equity Iowa Venture Capital 40

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. Is 2012 going to be 2000 all over again? Valuations.

Angel Investor 104

Angel Investor Valuation Startup Revenue 104

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2011

If you’ve taken the roller coaster ride that is a startup – you know what I’m talking about. The truth is that in my experience very, very few people really enjoy the “pure&# startup environment: months with no salary, months with no live product and lots of trial, error & rejection. It’s addicting. La vita e bella.

Entrepreneur 176

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 176

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2017

A startup can benefit in various ways from having a strategic investor involved in their company, but there are plenty of drawbacks too, both commonly known and more subtle. On the flip side, simply taking strategic investor capital because it’s there or it’s easier or cheaper than other capital rarely works out well for startups.

Strategic Investors 120

Strategic Investors Post-Money Valuation Seed Stage Cofounder 120

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 Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

From around 2000, and perhaps coinciding with the need to work harder to win deals as opportunities dried up after the internet bubble burst, individual partners at VC firms began adding ‘helping CEOs win’ to their job descriptions. . This trend accelerated through the emergence of VC and operator blogging in the early 2000s. .

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Advisor. ); STARTUP. Durkin , managing partner with the Boston -based law firm Lucash, Gesmer & Updegrove LLP. Chip Morse , cofounder and partner with Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton P.C., As you think about how much equity to offer, have a reasonable valuation in mind thats been determined using professional advice.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 14, 2016

Valuations were stretched, both on a fundamentals basis and compared with the public markets, and there were even whispers of a ‘new paradigm’ for valuing companies now that businesses can expand around the world so fast. I think it’s unlikely we will crash as hard as did in 2000 or 2008.

Cloud 60

Cloud Valuation Venture Capital Later Stage 60

Austin Startup

JULY 23, 2010

Having been founded in 1999, Zilliant is hard to categorize as a startup anymore. The company announced that is just completed $13M in financing from existing investors SMH Private Equity Group, ABS Ventures, Austin Ventures, and Trellis Partners. Most people don’t really think of pricing as an elastic thing.

Balance Sheet 67

Balance Sheet Private Equity LP IPO 67

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

We were trying to optimize around a few criteria: price, size of round, number of syndicate partners and, of course, terms. million at a $15 million pre-money valuation. We moved into the legal process and final due diligence in January and February of 2000. Morgan Stanley had proposed a higher valuation to let them in.

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

I’d like to explain as best I can my opinion on what is going on because most of what I hear from entrepreneurs is not only wrong but is reminiscent of what I heard in 1997-2000. I have been talking about my concerns about valuations for the past couple of years because, well, they’ve been rising very rapidly the past two years!

Valuation 150

Valuation Down Round Startup Later Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

MySpace would liked to have owned YouTube but didn’t have the public stock valuation to purchase them at the price that Google did. It did not have the same success as Google’s acquisition and MySpace sold Photobucket 2 years later to a relatively unknown Seattle-based startup called Ontela for a reportedly $60 million.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Internet Technical Review 318

Altgate

MARCH 8, 2009

I say ecosystem as opposed to industry because it is not just the VC funds themselves that are imploding, instead the collapse includes entrepreneurs and startups that were funded by VCs, angel investors, service providers like lawyers, bankers and accountants as well as limited partner investors in VC funds. Also, the $1.5

Later Stage 34

Later Stage Early Stage Venture Capital Portfolio 34

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2011

Ben and his partner Marc Andreessen (the founder of Netscape and author of the first commercial web browser on the Internet ) are the definition of Smart Money. They understood the ubiquity, pervasiveness and ultimate profitability of these startups and doubled-down on their investments. with my colleague Ben Horowitz.

Internet 297

Internet Silicon Valley United States .Net 297

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Want to start a startup? Investors evaluate startups the way customers evaluate products,not the way bosses evaluate employees. If youre making a valianteffort and failing, maybe theyll invest in your next startup, butnot this one. No one is interestedin a startup thats a "bargain" because everyone else hates it.

Bootstrapping 77

Bootstrapping Term Sheet Founder Startup 77

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Sarah also points to the vast global wealth that has to get allocated somewhere as well as a small bump in long term average returns, now that the generally terrible performance of funds from the 2000-2002 time frame (after the tech bubble of the late 90s crashed) no longer factor in to 10 year returns.

LP 154

LP Portfolio Venture Capital IRR 154

David Teten

NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Each new investor tends to raise valuations and lower returns for all the other competitive investors. In the asset management industry, the norm is that the General Partner puts in 1-2% of the total assets under management. According to CB Insights, there is little to no relationship between financial runway and startup success.

Management 114

Management Pre-Money Valuation Venture Capital New Hampshire 114

VC Cafe

JANUARY 20, 2014

New data from research firm Pitchbook makes it official: valuations are at an all-time high. 222 firms held initial public offerings last year, raising $55 Billion, the most since 406 companies went public for $97 million in 2000. Across all investment stages, median pre-money valuations last year rose dramatically.

Venture Capital 155

Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation IPO 155

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 In fact, if you exclude the Dot Com Bubble of 1999-2000, they have been steady for nearly thirty years. 1999-2000 51.6% IPO market. 1990-1998 13.3%

SEC 36

SEC Accredited Investor IPO Technical Review 36

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 12, 2020

This is true not just for startups, but for so many of the institutions that govern society. Commitments to respect their employees, their customers, their partners. And this is true not just of startups, but of so many of the institutions that govern society. You may have suppliers, vendors, partners, and then you have society.

Silicon Valley 113

Silicon Valley Design Hiring Government 113

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

There were over 2000 participants and around 100 speakers from all over the world. Representatives from banks, VCs, publicly traded companies, and local startups showed up to the “gala event.” The US markets have generally proven themselves as giving better valuations, and long term liquidity.”.

IPO 92

IPO Cofounder Europe 92