Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Just ask anybody who was trying to close funding the fateful week of September 11, 2001 or even March 2000. They should heed the age old advice that raising slightly more money while you can is always better than trying to optimize future valuations. Market downturn – We all know that investors move in herds. Short answer – yes.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

I don’t believe that search is the only answer in 2010 as it was in 2000. Golden rule of branding for me: 1) name your company or product your URL and 2) don’t paint yourself into a corner. &# Tweet&# = corner. billion valuation. Zazzle] and c) artisan products [etsy, foodzie]. But I made it for a reason.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

I’m honored to be at a university noted for knowledge, and in a city with 2000 years of history – home of Gaudí one of the 20 th century’s greatest innovators. Look at the valuations of companies like Tesla, Illumina, and Twitter. This type of innovation creates new products or new services that did not exist before.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

OnlyOnce

OCTOBER 31, 2013

Fred Wilson has been a venture investor and director in Return Path since 2000, first with Flatiron Partners and then with Union Square Ventures. The quality of your VC isn’t more important than the quality of your product or your team, but it’s right up there. Similarly, I’d always sacrifice valuation for a clean security.

Valuation 133

Valuation Term Sheet B2C Security 133

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

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. Is a completed product necessary to get funding? Mark comments on the importance of being able to ship product.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Silicon Valley is still emerging from the tech bubble and massive downturn of late 2000-2002. Yes… he was a very successful PayPal exec and previously co-founder & VP Product of SocialNet. Not long after the product launch we began the initial conversations with VCs for a Series A round. It was a $4.7M

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 15, 2020

Up until late August, Lightning Labs had capped the channel capacity and payment size for users of their popular implementation of the network to ~$2000 USD and ~$500 respectively to better protect user funds with experimental software. . 3) Exchanges + HFTs. synthetic stocks or futures) and prediction markets.

Networking 168

Networking Global OTC Security 168

Ben's Blog

JUNE 18, 2011

If they have, then we should be able to see some evidence that the dominant public technology companies are moving towards bubble valuations. Apple’s valuation is now a case for business historians to discuss because I don’t think there are modern precedents. In the last bubble, the S&P hit 44x in January 2000.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Software Review Valuation Internet 76

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Institutional venture capital dispensed thus far in 2014 has been up significantly over the last few years, but is still less than half of the peak hit way back in the year 2000 (over $100 billion). Super Angels sometimes drive up valuations. The cost of entry for tech startups continues to go down.

Angel Investor 260

Angel Investor Silicon Valley Startup Portfolio 260

ConversionXL

MAY 1, 2017

One of the greatest threats to long-term success is when companies aren’t vigilant enough about responding to the changes in their market—whether it’s by failing to spot product or channel fatigue, acknowledge new competition, make needed updates to products or marketing adjustments in a timely fashion, or embrace new technology coming online.

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Algorithm Channel Analytics 127

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. Startups needed millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product out the door to customers. August 1995 – March 2000: The Dot.Com Bubble.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Villalobos & Payne: “Startup Pre-Money Valuation: The Keystone to Return on Investment” 117. After years of leading busy and productive lives, lying on the beach and sipping cocktails just does not cut it. Sohl: “The Angel Investor Market in 2009: Holding Steady but Changes in Seed and Startup Investments”. 1961- 1996.

Angel Investor 114

Angel Investor Technical Review Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation 114

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Keep the valuations consistent with company progress. The bottom line is that the pedigree of your investors will have much to do with your ultimate valuation and with your enjoyment of the startup experience. You want to see your product or service performing in the hands of real users. Some products are very simple to message.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

When times are really good for fund raising many teams delay to maximize their valuation. When you see evidence that there is this so called “product / market fit&# then you may be ready for larger amounts of capital. 5 million raised at a $9 million pre-money valuation or 35.7% How do you push valuation?

Pre-Money Valuation 303

Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Valuation PR 303

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

While a flood of new VCs came into existence during the late 90’s internet boom, many had difficulty raising new funds after the crashes of 2000-2001 and 2008 , and as a result significantly fewer fund managers exist now compared to a decade ago. In the past ten years there have been several dramatic changes in venture capital.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

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. Be Connected & Productive Anywhere, Any Time. Graham liked the idea. To find answers.

Arizona 40

Arizona Equity Iowa Venture Capital 40

Pascal's View

AUGUST 21, 2011

Welcome to the latest passionate debate over the ‘valuation bubble or not?’ For me Bubble will always be inexorably linked to what went down in 1999 and 2000 in the internet sector. Specifically, too much money has gone into VC-backed Internet companies at too high a valuation. question in venture capital. It is intentional.

Valuation 50

Valuation Social Media Media IPO 50

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

I was thumbing through Twitter messages on my Blackberry on Monday (I use Twitter as a “ mobile first, web second &# product) when I saw the following Tweet (see graphic). I freely admit this (along with nearly everything between 1999-2000) was a mistake. Valuation or percentages – it’s up to you.

Stock Options 294

Stock Options Stock Valuation Liquidation Preference 294

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. These two trends had a major impact on the computing industry from 2000-2005 but the effects weren’t yet felt by the VC industry.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Yes, it’s true that FOMO (fear of missing out) is driving some irrational behavior and valuations amongst uber competitive deals and well-financed VCs. In 1998 there were around 850 VC funds and by 2000 there were 2,300. By 2000 the total LP commitments had mushroomed to more than $100 billion. The Funding Problem.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

gigaom.com

JULY 10, 2012

AT&T promised in April to open Watson up to general development, but on Monday AT&T SVP for technology and network operations John Donovan made the launch official in a blog post , revealing seven different “contexts,” or language libraries, that app builders can access to speechify their products. Sign up for a free trial.

API 50

API Technical Review Artificial Inteligence RSS 50

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

The fact that SaaS valuations are being more affected by the downturn than the Nasdaq can be surprising given the supposed resiliency of the SaaS model (recurring revenues) but it translates the public investors belief that SMB software spend is going to be hit very hard by this recession. With this decline, the average EV/08 rev.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Portfolio 48

abovethecrowd.com

JULY 10, 2014

Financial models, especially valuation models, are interesting in that they can be particularly precise. While it may seem like a tough question to answer, I would argue that most practitioners of valuation analysis would state “not very high.” It is not my aim to specifically convince anyone that Uber is worth any specific valuation.

San Francisco 111

San Francisco San Jose Marketing Technical Review 111

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Pragmatic cost cuts are always possible and often productive.” I learned this lesson 127 times between 2000 and 2005. 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. It’s simply not true.

Cap Table 70

Cap Table Down Round Liquidation Preference Founder 70

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Companies that find product/market fit deserve to grow--and if there are enough of those, there will be enough capital to follow them. Is 2012 going to be 2000 all over again? Valuations. There are a ton of companies being funded at $500+ million valuations--seriously limiting exit opportunities. Are we in a bubble?

Angel Investor 104

Angel Investor Valuation Startup Revenue 104

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

invested, IPO’ed in 2000 for $32/share — stock price now $2. Like GroupOn, with a product that everyone agreed was brilliant, spawning 1,000 copy-cats. GroupOn’s engine that turned capital into revenue growth was a form of force-feeding rather than building a product). Support.com — On 2.5m

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Up and Running

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Is it $2000, $3000, five, six, or seven clients per month? Groupon, the second fastest company to ever reach a billion dollars in valuation, started with a WordPress blog. A product is never perfect so we might as well start with nothing. Validating an app idea starts before building the product. Learn continuously.

Cofounder 125

Cofounder Revenue Valuation Design 125

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

Because most internet business concepts were not capable of productively employing tens of millions of dollars of venture capital does not mean they were bad ideas." But at what valuation? Seed and early investors might get bought out--perhaps by the growth funds that were fueling the valuation growth. That is the real question.

Hockey Stick 60

Hockey Stick Valuation Startup Maryland 60

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Back in 1997, Randy Parker was staring at a blank whiteboard, wondering where hed find the money to hire the employees and consultants he needed to build his new product. "We As you think about how much equity to offer, have a reasonable valuation in mind thats been determined using professional advice. Copyright © 2000 inc.com.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

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. Mostly you read about fundings, product releases, big valuations, and M&A. of your product. Another good article.

Entrepreneur 384

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 384

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

I know the standard line, “I want to do a small round now and raise a larger round later when we get A,B,C deal done and I can raise at a higher valuation.&# If it works you’re a hero. Google suddenly makes your product category free). - you may hit unexpected bumps in the road yourself making the next round tough.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Silicon Valley Warrant 319

Gust

OCTOBER 17, 2012

It is not highly concentrated geographically, or in the bubble of 1998-2000, or in any industry. The production of cash is highly concentrated in winners; 90 percent of all the cash returns are produced by 10 percent of the exits. For the first half of this year, valuations aren’t outlandish, at about $2.7

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Venture Capital Seed Stage Silicon Valley 152

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This can often happen when there is a good product built but no real customer adoption yet. million which closed the first week of March 2000 – a week before the market crashed. We built 4 products simultaneously with no market feedback. We had 6 developers, 1 head of product management, 1 QA in India and me.

Founder 299

Founder Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 299

Austin Startup

JULY 23, 2010

What other products have they looked at? Which products are already in their shopping cart? These are some things to think about when pricing products dynamically, but I’m sure Zilliant’s products are not just focused on realtime web. What time of day are they shopping? How did they arrive at our website?

Balance Sheet 67

Balance Sheet Private Equity LP IPO 67

Ben's Blog

MARCH 24, 2011

As we do so, keep in mind that the relevant bubble statistic is not valuation. High valuations are fine if the underlying value is there. In the great bubble of 1998-2000, the boom in public valuations mirrored the boom in private valuations. If too much venture capital hits the streets, valuations will bubble up.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Database 78

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

Many business models that failed in the early 2000s are now incredibly successful because now, the timing is right, the technology is here, and it’s easier than ever before to achieve scale. As an example, my company SitePoint tried selling eBooks back in 2000 and no one bought into it. Matt Mickiewicz , Flippa and 99designs.

Social Media 152

Social Media Flash Business Model Startup 152

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 26, 2013

There is additional encouraging news for aspiring entrepreneurs on many fronts, just in case you are thinking about joining the existing ranks: Valuations of successful startups have hit an all-time high. That is a 65% increase in the number of IPOs over 2012, and the highest proceeds raised since the year 2000.

IPO 273

IPO Entrepreneur Social Media Startup 273