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Building Something vs. Proving Something

View from Seed

Increasingly, seed rounds occur after some sort of pre-seed or at least some period of bootstrapping. In most cases, the two most important things to prove early on are 1) that the founders can attract A+ talent and 2) that there are signals of market demand for their product. But this is a trap.

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Strategy Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Exciting Companies Lined Up For Microsoft Startup Grant Finals

ReadWriteStart

Freshdesk First, Girish Mathrubootham from Chennai, India, pitched Freshdesk , a SaaS company that provides small and medium businesses with on-demand customer support software that offers multi-channel social support. We see Bizosys as a promising niche vendor with demonstrated capabilities in creative bootstrapping.

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Flexible VCs With Structures Between Equity and Revenue-Based Investing

David Teten

—– Earnest Capital invests in bootstrapped companies to help them unlock more growth. All Earnest investments are made using the Shared Earnings Agreement (SEAL) – a custom salary/profit share structure, aligned with how most bootstrapped founders are compensated.

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Lessons from a year’s worth of hiring data

blog.alinelerner.com

Frequency of buzzwords (programming languages, frameworks, OSes, software packages, etc.). Though I’m generally not too excited by judging someone on pedigree, having been able to hold down a demanding job at a competitive employer shows that you can actually, you know, hold down a demanding job at a competitive employer.

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Twitter Link Roundup #47 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

crowdSPRING Blog

How to Create a Great Startup Office Space on a Bootstrap Budget – [link]. 30 Useful Frameworks for Designers – [link]. UberCab: Roll In Style With On Demand Car Service – [link]. Buyer Beware: Generic Logo Design – [link]. But I Just Wanted To Be Fair… – [link].

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Twitter Link Roundup #47 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

crowdSPRING Blog

How to Create a Great Startup Office Space on a Bootstrap Budget – [link]. 30 Useful Frameworks for Designers – [link]. UberCab: Roll In Style With On Demand Car Service – [link]. Buyer Beware: Generic Logo Design – [link]. But I Just Wanted To Be Fair… – [link].

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Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control

David Teten

RBI is really designed to replace equity with a patient, flexible, long-term growth funding framework while factoring, MCAs and receivables financing are more of a short-term, working capital oriented set of solutions.” . The RBI investment model better aligns incentives between VCs and a founder who chooses to bootstrap.

Revenue 60