Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. It was accept the terms or go into bankruptcy so we took the money. Tags: Startup Advice This Week in Venture Capital. Those were the dog days of entrepreneurship.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

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

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

At an accelerator … Me: Raising convertible notes as a seed round is one of the biggest disservices our industry has done to entrepreneurs since 2001-2003 when there were “full ratchets” and “multiple liquidation preferences” – the most hostile terms anybody found in term sheets 10 years ago.

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Professor VC

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

I doubt Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures believed that a horse with a horn existed when she wrote Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups in late 2013, but she probably had no idea that it would become a hot buzzword in Silicon Valley and hit the cover of mainstream business press, Fortune Magazine. And this is not it."

Las Vegas 28

Las Vegas IPO Pre-Money Valuation Valuation 28