article thumbnail

10 Keys To Surviving Startup Cash Flow Requirements

Startup Professionals Musings

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding to build reserves.

article thumbnail

Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. as a distribution channel have vastly reduced the amount of capital a startup needs at the early stage when the risk is greatest.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Grant Applications Often Provide Early-Stage Funding

Startup Professionals Musings

Acquiring seed-stage funding is admittedly tough, but a source that I find often overlooked is government grant funding, accessible in the U.S. Specifically, I often point to the NSF or the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program for high-tech startups. Another alternative is to find an inexpensive class on grant writing.

article thumbnail

6 Sources of Help For Early Stage Concept Exploration

Startup Professionals Musings

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. If you need funding for these early stage activities, I have some suggestions on better strategies to follow. Product verification and clinical trials. Expanding the product line.

article thumbnail

Entrepreneurs Court New Super-Angel Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

I see now emerging a new wave of investors, popularly known as “super-Angels,” micro-VCs, or “super-seed” investors. Every early-stage startup should explore this new funding alternative. Venture capital dispensed quarterly to startups actually declined again in the first quarter of 2013 to $6.3

article thumbnail

How Baby Boomers Fit In The Realm Of Entrepreneurship

Startup Professionals Musings

One of the biggest myths in the business world is that startups are no place for Baby Boomers, that aging generation born between 1945 and 1964. Today people over 55 are almost twice as likely to create successful startups as Gen-Y, age 20 to 34. Yet credible reports on current trends tell us just the opposite.

article thumbnail

Venture Capital Firms Broaden Horizons: Early and Late-Stage Investments Fuel Innovation and Growth

The Startup Magazine

Venture capital: it’s the jet fuel behind many of the most explosive startups turning them into household names. Traditionally, VC firms sought to find the perfect balance between risk and reward, often focusing on specific stages of a company’s growth. The allure here is unmistakable.