View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

That’s a bit of a cautionary tale to VC investors today who might think it’s inevitable that the private value they are enjoying in their portfolios will certainly translate to distributions in the near future. One thing that jumps out quickly is that TVPI between 2004-2010 (avg 2.6x) has underperformed 2011-2017 (avg 3.0x).

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

Transformify

SEPTEMBER 12, 2017

Post Brexit, many companies in the UK consider distributed teams overseas as an alternative to the shrinking talent pool and high recruitment costs in Britain. Nairobi, the capital of Nigeria, is often pointed out as the birth place of the so-called Silicon Savanah which gave the rise to the Africa’s tech scene between 2007 and 2010.

Africa 75

Africa Benin Seychelles Nigeria 75

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

It seems that four different models of "discussion creation" have occurred: Organice Discussion - someone posts something interesting, lots of bloggers post on the topic, distributed discussion ensues. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. See Five Things Meme as an example.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. Partnership Opportunities At any show you are attending there has to be tons of opportunity for business to business relationships you hadn’t thought about. Write it down and keep it in a tradeshow handbook for those who will follow.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. But all things are never equal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

However after Sequoia and Ron Conway announced their investment in YC in 2009 , and after YC alumni DropBox and AirBnb raised capital on billion-dollar valuations in 2010-11, the program quickly became the gold standard among early-stage startup incubators. and no, we didn’t. Isn’t this just a lack of focus?

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

Mucker Lab

JANUARY 1, 2014

VC’s start investing in technology-enabled “offline” businesses (distribution, services etc) – most of whom would never have gotten venture money 3 years ago. Google finally fixes the problem with mobile (discovery, search, distribution, tracking, monetization, a/b testing) and races ahead while Apple waxes nostalgically for 2010.

Seed Stage 84

Seed Stage Early Stage Distribution Bootstrapping 84

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The people who are the lifeblood of an early-stage startup are earlyvangelists. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim. April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Mucker Lab

JANUARY 1, 2014

VC’s accelerate investments in “internet of things” except sometime in Q4, wake up and realize it’s no different than “consumer electronics” – and that we still need to innovate around the manufacturing infrastructure, distribution economics, and consumer liability of the consumer goods business to really make this a venture fundable category.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Early Stage Distribution Bootstrapping 60

Startup Company Lawyer

MARCH 14, 2010

In addition, I think that a “peace treaty&# between early-stage investors and startup companies on standard terms (at least at a term sheet level) is a step in the right direction. I suspect that this seems reasonable if there is basically no due diligence due to the early stage of the companies. (By Legal fees.

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

We spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about industry trends (in this order): The history and background of True Ventures, one of my favorite early-stage VC’s (and the one with whom Om is a venture partner). first vertical to launch by 2010 Holiday Season. DST invested $180mm last fall. No Financial details disclosed.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

After that there’s a discussion of how the product will reach the customer and the potential distribution channel. The distribution discussion leads to some conclusions about competition: who are they and how they differ. The distribution discussion also leads to some assumptions about pricing.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

The party rounds , which were the range in late 2010 and early 2011, became less common and we started to see the smaller funds begin to lead rounds. Top engineering talent today has a bimodal distribution. Taken together, it means an early stage company needs to survive longer, with higher expenses.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Do you know have they distribute their product? That’s why early stage companies aren’t run by accountants with spreadsheets. Reply Quora , on October 20, 2010 at 7:22 pm Said: What is the most effective way to get the word out about a new product?… Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

Silicon Valley 181

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Faith-based Entrepreneurship At first, entrepreneurship is a Faith-based initiative. There is no certainty about a startup on day-one.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 212

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

Bottom Up Market Sizing » January 12, 2010. Please see later version of this post on May 16, 2010 Entrepreneurs are often not experts in the area of term-sheet negotiations and all of the surrounding issues.   A cumulative dividend can get to be very expensive and is not often a feature in early stage terms.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

So that was 2010. John Jantsch: Microsoft builder that … One of the early ones on there, and it just, it scares me to think about that now. I think now people are just finding ways to distribute audio content, and to me, the beauty of it is the portability, like you just mentioned. John Jantsch: Awesome.

Audio 57

Audio Boston Video HTML 57

VC Cafe

APRIL 8, 2010

This is an excellent deal for Qlipso and JVP as they managed to almost instantly grow from an early stage starup to a revenue producing business (estimates say 7 figures by the end of 2010) with significant distribution for Qlipso’s 3D interactive platform.

Bankruptcy 75

Bankruptcy Early Stage Merger Institutional Investors 75

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

So I got out out of the building to meet and understand our customers and distribution partners. Unfortunately, while I had gone through phases of video game addiction in my life, in no way could I be described as even a “moderate hard-core gamer,” which ruled me out as a domain expert.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 139

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 13, 2010

and its market-leading eDiscoveryManager application, as well as numerous industry recognitions including KM World 100 Companies that Matter, Network Products Guide 2010 Product Innovation Award, and Info Security 2010 Global Product Excellence Award. Phil is a co-founder and general manager at PerformanceEdge Partners.

Vertical 59

Vertical Early Stage Cofounder Channel 59

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Lowering/increasing the cost of engineering personnel doesn’t affect this model (although the trend over the last two decades has been to dramatically lower the cost of developing a software product: open source libraries, Moore’s Law, Internet distribution/SaaS are three big drivers).

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

nikcub.appspot.com

MARCH 8, 2012

5th November 2010. #. These three roles are critical in an early-stage company, so if a non-technical co-founder can bring two of them to a startup while also being able to bridge the communications to technical people, you will be in a much better position. New Web Order. Finding a Technical Co-Founder.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Web Founder South Korea 40

Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

How do you deal with a severely uneven distribution of investment success between individuals or groups of partners? Here’s a slightly perverse scenario… Acme Ventures starts out as an early-stage VC investing in US-based IT companies. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010.

Silicon Valley 240

Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year. You have heard, I am sure, that venture capitalists only invest in very large market opportunities - $500 million to $1 billion. Raymond is wondering why he cannot attract financing.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year. You have heard, I am sure, that venture capitalists only invest in very large market opportunities - $500 million to $1 billion. Raymond is wondering why he cannot attract financing.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Filed under: Marketing , Technology , Venture Capital | Tagged: Steve Blank , Venture Capital , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « Customer Analytics – From Those Who Should Know SuperMac War Story 10: The Video Spigot » 14 Responses Michael F. I now think that was a mistake.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

There are some ways you can look to address the problem: If you are currently using a field sales organization that sells direct, look at whether it is possible to sign up OEM deals with strategic partners to leverage their customer base and distribution power. Then you can go back into their customers and upsell them. All rights reserved.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

You can be an Independent studio or do “work for hire&# (either a revenue share or buy-out model) - If you’re an independent studio you have a set of choices for distribution channel and marketing models. - We understood none of this. More detail in future posts. steve Twitted by altgate , on July 2, 2009 at 5:22 pm Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners. Reply Cognitive Biases, Positive Black Swan Events and Startups | Market By Numbers | San Diego | Marketing Help , on January 3, 2010 at 9:13 am Said: [.] Don’t bother him; he knows what he’s doing. Make sure they are.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2021

San Antonio has Geekdom with USAA and Port San Antonio with the Air Force Cyber Command; Houston has The Ion with Rice University, Microsoft and NASA and The Cannon distributed across the city; Dallas has Pegasus Park with UT Southwestern and Lyda Hill Philanthropies; and Austin has Capital Factory with the Army Futures Command.

Texas 90

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 90

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

million, indicating a somewhat normal distribution. This worksheet provides the investor with a basis for deciding if a start-up company should be valued near the top or bottom of the range of values that might reasonably be applied to such an early stage venture. million and the mode (middle number) for this data set is $2.0

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

Eric Friedman

AUGUST 18, 2021

He is also co-founder and Managing Partner of Deciens Capital, an early stage investment fund. Previously, he was the COO of digital gift card start-up Giftly from its inception in 2010 to its acquisition by Giftcards.com in 2013. Dan is the co-founder of Standard Treasury, a Y Combinator backed company.

Silicon Valley 88

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cofounder Africa 88

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

(Company) a good place to find good technical co-founders? Where can I find co-founders who understand distributed systems and databases? How have non-technical founders found technical co-founders? Finding Co-Founders: What are some good ways to find technical co-founders in India? Yishan Wong • Nov 8, 2010 lol.if

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you’re working closely with partners who are helping you distribute your product, it’s especially important to make sure they understand who you are, how you speak, and who you serve. After about a six-month development cycle, we launched a beta version in July 2010 and three months later, started earning revenue that grew each month.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Professor VC

JUNE 20, 2011

The business model (OEM through broadband and home security companies for mass distribution) if not specific product functionality has remained largely the same. ► 2010. (7). I take CFO roles in early stage companies and participate on the management team during the early financings and business model development phases.

San Jose 28

San Jose Angel Investor Term Sheet Venture Capital 28

VC Adventure

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

This year’s conference will highlight twenty promising early-growth companies; all based in the Rocky Mountain region and a majority of which are focused on clean technology, a burgeoning industry in the area. Eco-Products is the nation’s leading brand of single use food service products made from renewable and recycled resources. ·

Venture Capital 52

Venture Capital Colorado Mezzanine Wyoming 52

VC Adventure

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

Twenty Companies Ranging From Seed Stage to Mezzanine Will Showcase Next Generation Technologies from Various Industries at the 27 th Annual VCIR Winter 2010 Conference. Eco-Products is the nation’s leading brand of single use food service products made from renewable and recycled resources. ·

Venture Capital 52

Venture Capital Colorado Mezzanine Wyoming 52