View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2019

At the time, I spent most of my time describing the metrics themselves and how VCs and their LPs evaluate performance based on these measurements. If you aren’t familiar with these metrics, I recommend reading the original post to get a sense of the numbers that I’ll be reviewing here. So, is this good or bad?

LP 256

LP IRR Distribution Portfolio 256

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

The key elements of leadership in a company, both individual and organizational, are less tangible, but very critical in setting a market value for investment, acquisition, or going public. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” How much goodwill can you and your company command today?

Leadership 120

Leadership Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2021

New startup founders keep all the operating metrics they need in their head. Even if you don’t have a formal board of directors, it pays to have trusted advisors who will give you regular unbiased feedback on your team strengths and weaknesses, financial and operating ratio norms, and an external view of current company valuation issues.

Exit Strategy 434

Exit Strategy Valuation Acquisition Metrics 434

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

When you see startups like SpaceX and Pinterest grow from a low valuation to a billion dollars in just a few years, it’s easy to assume that if you just keep doing what you are doing, you can get there as well. Utilize mergers and acquisitions to accelerate growth. Switch your focus from product development to sales.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2016

That should make you wonder - how do you measure traction in a metric? While thinking about the parameters of traction, and how to measure it, I was impressed with a new book, “ Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth ” by Ash Maurya, a serial entrepreneur, and creator of the one-page business modelling tool Lean Canvas.

Metrics 143

Metrics Advisory Board Startup Lean 143

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

How long does it take me to pay back my original customer acquisition costs? Raise too soon and likely take on more dilution, wait and get valuation up (as our metrics continue to rise) but then run to a point where you have a lower cash balance and place more risks on the business. How profitable is my product or service?

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

YoungUpstarts

MAY 29, 2011

Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x However, this does not mean that investors don’t have a significant effect on valuations and M&A). Here are 14 of the report’s key findings: 1. Founders that learn are more successful.

Silicon Valley 230

Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Cofounder Startup 230

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Or is there a major disconnect between a portfolio’s valuations and the actual dollars returned to LPs? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For a primer, I would recommend refreshing yourself here. Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

Software By Rob

FEBRUARY 28, 2012

This is final installment of a 3-part series covering my acquisition of HitTail. Could you talk a bit about the diligence you did during the acquisition? Due diligence is the most important part of the process because it dictates whether you should move forward with the acquisition, and at what price. Photo by psiaki.

Acquisition 53

Acquisition Software Review Technical Review NDA 53

Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

Also during this time, the underlying metrics in that business can change positively, potentially trapping companies to accept the initially-agreed upon valuation. Governments blocking acquisitions, the curtailment of company expansion, more scrutiny on overseas operations of U.S. That will take a long time to settle.

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Venture Capital Russia China 165

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Or is there a major disconnect between a portfolio’s valuations and the actual dollars returned to LPs? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For a primer, I would recommend refreshing yourself here. Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Founders that learn are more successful : Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x However, this does not mean that investors don’t have a significant effect on valuations and M&A). Startup Genome Report. Some of their key findings : 1.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

The Startup Magazine

APRIL 24, 2020

Whether you’re interested in selling a website you built from scratch, or want to sell your Amazon-based B2C brand, there are many different baseline factors that go into determining an appropriate website valuation number. While it’s true that valuations can get quite technical, the basics are relatively easy to understand.

eCommerce 91

eCommerce Valuation B2C Revenue 91

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2019

With the real data from that surge, you need to take a hard look at business model realities, cost of customer acquisition, inventory costs, and other key metrics. Even huge valuation increases will evaporate overnight when profitability is nowhere in sight, and you run out of money.

Silicon Valley 215

Silicon Valley Bankruptcy Metrics Valuation 215

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

VC Adventure

MARCH 17, 2022

Perhaps you raised at what historically have been very attractive valuations (we certainly have companies in our portfolio that have raised well, well above the historical averages). Your underlying business metrics should. Hopefully, the markets will bounce back some. But don’t bet your business on it.

Balance Sheet 121

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Valuation Metrics 121

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 5, 2019

Are you fresh out of Y Combinator with $1 million in funding at a $10 million valuation? But flattering media attention too easily shifts focus away from the metrics that matter. Call me old school, but I believe in metrics like growth, revenue, and profit. All other metrics are irrelevant. They’re ripe for acquisition.

Valuation 162

Valuation Cofounder Metrics SEC 162

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Online social networking is a concept still being evangelized even in Silicon Valley… Friendster is in private beta (wasn’t until Oct 2003 they received Google acquisition offer which they turned down for Kleiner/Benchmark round). It was a pretty good valuation for the time. It was a $4.7M link] leehower. link] Healy Jones.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 23, 2011

The sales productivity ratio (measured with the Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC ratio) are also fairly similar for the two groups (except for a small cap dip in Q4 09) and therefore do not explain the difference Why is scale so much rewarded by public markets? Detailed SaaS Spreadsheet (Valuation and CAC benchmark). My Investments.

Software Review 101

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Europe 101

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Or is there a major disconnect between a portfolio’s valuations and the actual dollars returned to LPs? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For a primer, I would recommend refreshing yourself here. Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

David Teten

AUGUST 6, 2015

It’s misleadingly precise to have two digits to the right of the decimal in a CAC/LTV multiple for year 3 of your forecast (“Customer Acquisition Cost”/”LifeTime Value of Customer”). financial statement summaries, valuation analysis, ratio analysis, etc.) Use an appropriate number of significant digits. once a model has been finalized.

Balance Sheet 60

Balance Sheet Software Review Forecast Acquisition 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Underwriters realized that as long as the public was happy snapping up shares, they could make huge profits on the inflated valuations (regardless of whether or not the company should have ever been public.) Tech acquisitions went crazy at the same time the IPO market did. My own metric is that you need experience >= 1.5

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2015

Is your customer-acquisition rate accelerating? If the ongoing acquisition rate is slow, and not trending upward, it may be time for a pivot or a reality check for your targets. Is customer acquisition cost going down? Smart investors and acquisition candidates heavily discount these efforts. Margins should be increasing.

Acquisition 120

Acquisition Valuation Angel Investor Stock 120

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds. Read on for a fuller explanation. by February 2006).

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

Berkonomics

JUNE 16, 2022

We can invent lots of metrics to measure progress for a leader, including revenue, profit, employee satisfaction, cost containment, percentage of available market, and more. There are many roads to Rio, so they say. But there is one overwhelming method of appraising the effectiveness of a business leader.

Later Stage 62

Later Stage Early Stage Valuation Acquisition 62

Growthink Blog

APRIL 15, 2015

For those in the bubble camp, Domo is “ Tech Unicorn ,” a recent start-up worth, either through a financing, an acquisition or IPO, more than $1 billion usually without any meaningful profits to speak of and thus instead valued via reasonings and justifications far outside of the pale of traditional finance and accounting.

Valuation 48

Valuation Venture Capital Finance Acquisition 48

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

Examples include – Roam Research – the note taking app that recently raised a seed round at $200M valuation Superhuman – the email productivity tool Masterclass – video classes from subject matter experts. That’s how Slack got started. Subscription fatigue?

B2C 187

B2C Cloud Valuation Acquisition 187

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 23, 2021

The metrics from the dashboard are the key inputs for collective decisions. You can always instrument your business and gather metrics, but that doesn’t mean the data you gather will be useful. For example, if you haven’t achieved product-market fit, instrumenting every aspect of customer acquisition is overkill.

Venture Capital 46

Venture Capital Metrics Investment Bankers Framework 46

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 20, 2014

As a thought exercise though I thought I’d try to put the valuation in perspective. With that said, Facebook’s acquisition price is <10x the conceivable revenue for WhatsApp. Viewed through this lens, Facebook’s acquisition price of $19 billion is something like 8x conceivable revenue. billion for it.

Valuation 159

Valuation Acquisition Mobile Revenue 159

ConversionXL

AUGUST 11, 2021

A sponsorship strategy should cover five areas: Assets Audience data Asset valuation Activations Market identification. Asset valuation. An inventory of metrics: Click-through rates, newsletter subscribers, downloads, social engagement, revenue figures, etc. Your most obvious asset is the product itself. Source ).

Audience 139

Audience Social Media Email Ruby 139

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

New startup founders keep all the operating metrics they need in their head. Even if you don’t have a formal board of directors, it pays to have trusted advisors who will give you regular unbiased feedback on your team strengths and weaknesses, financial and operating ratio norms, and an external view of current company valuation issues.

Exit Strategy 120

Exit Strategy Startup Valuation Acquisition 120

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 20, 2014

As a thought exercise though I thought I’d try to put the valuation in perspective. With that said, Facebook’s acquisition price is <10x the conceivable revenue for WhatsApp. Viewed through this lens, Facebook’s acquisition price of $19 billion is something like 8x conceivable revenue. billion for it.

Valuation 127

Valuation Acquisition Mobile Revenue 127

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

While poised with a limited number of transactions this year, the world of public Cloud Computing and SaaS companies has been marked by two events in the past few months: the acquisition of Omniture by Adobe and the high profile IPO of LogMeIn, a leading provider of PC remote access and support with a very interesting freemium model.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review IPO Cloud 48

Cracking the Code

MARCH 12, 2010

The SaaS growth recovery does not seem to take a "V" shape 2) Sales productivity is ramping up: bottom was hit in the first half of 2009 However, the sales and productivity of the group, measured by the median "Customer Acquisition Cost ratio" or "CAC ratio", seems to be recovering more steeply. SaaS 13 Index Valuation. My Investments.

Software Review 63

Software Review Technical Review Cloud Forecast 63

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

The law firm has done its job of preparing the stock option requests, board meeting minutes, 409a valuations. Often board members themselves don’t do the work to say “what metrics would we like to see.” If you have some key metrics or financial figures that go with the pre-read even better. The meeting starts.

Stock Options 226

Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226