Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. “COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

500k had come through the last acquisition. For some reason the industry of bankers who try to buy or sell businesses work in what is called the “M&A (mergers & acquisitions) Industry.&# I’ve never understood this. There’s really no such thing as a merger – only acquisitions. million uniques.

Merger 276

Merger Technical Review Early Stage Dilution 276

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

We want money to make some acquisitions (investors would prefer to fund M&A if they know specific deals – not to encourage bad behavior. Gross margin (GM) is the amount of profit you make per sale of your product or service taking into account your total costs of selling that product or service.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, Let’s start with how much value you think you’ll create for your customer if they use your product in terms of hours saved, costs avoided, extra sales, better conversion rates or whatever. People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 19, 2015

Sales people (and website customer acquisition folks) all think in terms of funnels and yet non-sales professionals seldom do. Today I’d like to give that advice in more tangible terms and with a framework to think about your tasks – the funnel.

LP 150

LP Warrant Portfolio Framework 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

We’ve had two companies where we had to bridge finance them several times before they eventually IPO’d We had a portfolio company turn-down a $350 million acquisition because they wanted at least $400 million. the sale of the company for $1 billion. It was ~30 days from bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

When they promise to help you with marketing, sales, distribution, integrated product development, etc. Imagine your investor has to call the CEO of a $20 billion company for approval for your merger or sale. Yeah, I know. it sure is tempting. And they probably have every intent of helping you.

Strategic Investors 279

Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

Both can hurt you in an acquisition. Don’t put all your eggs in the “corp dev basket” – often deals are champions by the business units (product or sales). Often it does. Outsourcing can be cheap. Remote teams can be higher retention for staff.

Technology 323

Technology PR Startup IPO 323

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2015

“the ecommerce company gained fauxmentum by raising artificially high amounts of venture capital and spent lavishly on customer acquisition despite long payback periods and questionable LTV” __. I’m not saying don’t hire sales staff or market your products aggressively. __. faux·men·tum.

Balance Sheet 150

Balance Sheet eCommerce Venture Capital Acquisition 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

They wanted to employ our entire team post acquisition. The world’s best brains are on sale. So BuildOnline kept the employees on their books and they did subcontracting work for our company, Koral. In 2007 Salesforce.com wanted to buy Koral. You can imagine the complexities. They would invent many more jobs than they would supplant.

Technical Review 282

Technical Review Canada Green South Carolina 282

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

billion in sales and thus controls less than 10% of the market. After a year in the market, MakeSpace was growing rapidly and our biggest issue was CAC (customer acquisition costs) relative to payback period (when we get our marketing investment back) and relative to LTV (lifetime value).

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2015

Best is if you have a combination of ad revenue, sponsorships and some forms of non ad revenue (subscriptions, merch, music sales, etc.). And given that Facebook and Twitter currently pay you zero for content marketing and Google SEM charges you for customer acquisition – what exactly are you b g about? post-script.

SEM 150

SEM Los Angeles Silicon Valley Acquisition 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

“it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive a higher acquisition valuation” I would like to amend her statement slightly to read, “it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive an higher acquisition.” I am not saying all companies should be for sale.

Valuation 316

Valuation Balance Sheet Dilution Term Sheet 316

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MARCH 12, 2013

Greg was the CMO at HauteLook from the early days all the way through growing the business to 12 million registered users and far in excess of $200 million in annual sales. One of his biggest accomplishments there was championing the acquisition of StubHub. .” I always felt the same. I made some reference calls. He was stubborn.

Partner 360

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles San Francisco 360

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

Because I built two SaaS companies and sold my second one to Salesforce.com (where I then took on the role of VP Products) I am often asked to look at SaaS and/or sales-oriented deals for others. Anything requiring lead generation and/or customer acquisition I call Matt Coffin.

Silicon Valley 293

Silicon Valley Technical Review Southern California Angel Investor 293

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

If a consumer will pay a fixed price for a product or service then the battle over who gets the margin in any sale is between the person who merchandises a product and the person who manufactures it. companies that have to spend too heavily on customer acquisition). I’ll give you some of Parachute’s repeat rates later in the post.

Curation 296

Curation Los Angeles Differentiation Channel 296

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SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

In the article it talks about Sequoia’s $19 billion sale of WhatsApp to Facebook that generated apparently $3 billion for Sequoia and its shareholders. So literally the day before the Facebook acquisition Sequoia’s fund could have been significantly less valuable on paper. Even when they are off-the-record with nobody else listening.

LP 264

LP Jordan Cofounder Limited Partner 264

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2014

By the time I funded them they were doing 400 million video views a month, had 40 million subscribers and had already become a powerhouse in ad sales / revenue working with marquee advertisers including: P&G, Budweiser, Nestle, Ford, Frito Lay and Honda. And we’re growing our sales organization.

South America 291

South America Colombia Mexico Vertical 291

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JULY 10, 2010

The importance of the conference is that it assembles most of the top privately held early-to-mid-stage technology companies in the country (and some globally) as well as most VC’s, growth equity funds and corporate development departments from large industry players looking at technology acquisitions. This is often in the 5-7% range.

IPO 242

IPO Venture Capital Private Placement Cofounder 242

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

Payback periods on customer acquisition way more important to you in the near-term. Get paybacks wrong and you're out of business  —  @msuster 4/ LTV/CAC is to impress investors. Ultimately it matters a great deal. Things happen, people tire, sometimes tragedies.

Founder 242

Founder Dilution Software Review Later Stage 242

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 1, 2009

But if not in your co-founder make sure that you think through all of the functional roles in your company: sales, marketing, finance, product management, customer support, technology and think about which ones match your strengths and where you need to plug holes. Do you understand how to lead a sales process? Take your inventory.

Hiring 289

Hiring Cofounder Dilution Startup 289

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

I agree with YouTube (that they provide more (hosting, ad sales, etc.) It is the world’s best customer acquisition for video consumers to get them to come to your O&O where you can make your $25 CPMs. YouTube hates this comparison and claims they provide so much more to their ecosystem than Apple does to its iOS ecosystem.

Networking 366

Networking Media Distribution Video 366

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

Rumored to have turned down acquisition offers from Yahoo and Facebook. Company plans to use the capital to build out sales and marketing and r&d. -a Spread through word-of-mouth as the company has no sales team, all engineers. Foursquare. -A A location based service which incorporates social and gaming elements.

San Francisco 248

San Francisco Venture Capital Analytics Government 248

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

And when you finish the demo you can bring in the other important components such as competition, team, customer acquisition strategy, etc. It’s the same as in any sales-oriented meeting and make no mistake raising money is sales. But flip you must – just as in a sales meeting. Mobile app? Bijan is right.

Early Stage 299

Early Stage Venture Capital B2B Sales 299

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

further down the sales funnel from CPC advertising where you pay for a click but still need to convert on your own). Think of the Amazon affiliate program where you’re paid if you help Amazon sell books (I think on average Amazon pays about 7% of sales). But higher value product sales often require a phone call.

Advertising 284

Advertising Las Vegas Affiliate RSS 284

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about The Silent Benefits of PR in which I pointed out that most young companies I encounter don’t fully grasp the benefits of PR because they are less measurable than product milestones or customer acquisition analyses (like CAC/LTV). What do you do when you have finally raised seed funds?

PR 319

PR Venture Capital Hiring Seed Capital 319

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SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I do find it strange that the most valuable skill for any employee in any company isn’t emphasized AT ALL in my experience: sales. Sales is the lifeblood of every organization. It fuels our bonus payments, our quarterly earnings, our growth rate, our value at acquisition time. It’s how we move products.

NPV 337

NPV Chicago Balance Sheet Database 337

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

The numbers of potential buyers had decreased dramatically both because large companies were shedding jobs and because many past buyers simply lacked resources to make acquisitions. Mobile devices deliver “bottom of funnel” sales opportunities that deliver real & immediate economic results. Bottom of the sales funnel.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2010

Your sales team is pounding the table because engineering won’t ship new features fast enough. Marketing wants the sales teams to use the materials they’ve produced. The way “being loved&# manifests itself is that as a CEO you build a great team beneath you each with great ideas and big career ambitions.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley United States Technical Review 330

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

Examples of VC platform services include: recruiting, marketing, design support, inside sales reps, consulting, accounting services and so forth. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros. Partner Leverage.

Portfolio 150

Portfolio PR Partner Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

This can include: Fund raising, product development choices, sales, marketing effectiveness, competition, business development, M&A … whatever. But what are the KEY ISSUES management is grappling with. You can write this as a narrative in 3–5 key bullet points. We think it will have a 30% attach rate to our core product.

Stock Options 226

Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

Quigo Lands Overture as Client, Rejects Their Acquisition Offer. After rejecting the offer, Mike had a team of his best people waiting to ‘kill’ him for turning down an acquisition that would have changed their lives forever financially. Lesson Learned From Rejecting Acquisition Offers. The secret to the software sales process.

Semantic 302

Semantic Acquisition Valuation Angel Investor 302

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

Nothing was more heart warming than the photo of David Karp hugging Bijan Sabet after the sale to Yahoo! This happens at acquisition time, too. I’ve heard directly from top executives that Jeff Bezos (in my opinion the most talented person in the tech industry) has received his fair share of VC coaching in the early years.

LP 374

LP Later Stage IRR Term Sheet 374

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

Enterprise Sales – The very first thing a potential customer does when you email or call to set up a meeting is Google you. Customer Acquisition - I left customer acquisition for last intentionally. but didn’t convert to sales. Classmates call. People give them attaboys. Press matters. Ironic, of course.

PR 415

PR Early Stage Dividend Acquisition 415

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Having recurring revenue allows you to keep the original purchase price down, which in turn increases sales. Traditional investors are so focused on “quantitative marketing” that he got a lot of advice that this money was better spent on online customer acquisition.

Security 247

Security Los Angeles Silicon Valley Video 247

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

I’m looking for somebody who can sell, but not better than our head of sales. You want somebody who can raise $15 million to build out your R&D, business development and sales organizations. And then I sneezed and he’s hired a kick-ass sales team. You want somebody who can lead teams on three continents.

Leadership 363

Leadership CTO Hire Technical Review Cofounder 363